The Gun Powder Plot
by Kristine Thorne
Summary: This is a Bad GirlsJudge John Deed cross over. It is Snowball and Ritchie's trial, as it should have been following some of the events from series five. Will contain scenes of a lesbian sexual nature. Complete.
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: The characters within belong to either Shed Productions or the BBC.   
  
A/N: This is a joint effort by myself and another writer named Richard. I couldn't have even thought about doing this without him.   
  
Part One  
  
On Friday the 15th of august, Yvonne Atkins was sitting in the visiting room at Larkhall prison, thankfully by this time on the right side of the table, not on the same side as the inmates. Yvonne had been out of prison since Christmas, and never intended to return. The inmate she was visiting and whom she had visited religiously every fortnight since her release, was Denny Blood. Denny was always happy to see Yvonne, and Yvonne never failed to have a smile for her. But this week, Yvonne's attention wasn't given to her as good as adopted daughter in as undivided a fashion as it usually was. Denny grabbed hold of Yvonne's hand and shook it.   
  
"Everything okay?" Yvonne looked up, startled. "You were somewhere else, man."   
  
"I'm sorry," Yvonne said, totally mollified. "Coming back to this place and knowing that Snowball Merriman isn't so far away from here isn't so easy to deal with this week."   
  
"She's up on trial next week, innit. They've been keeping her down the block for a fortnight now, and Al Friggin McKenzy's doped up to the eyeballs all day. Jesus, you'd think she was on trial, not Merriman." Yvonne looked slightly worried.   
  
"Can you do something for me, Denny? You're still in the dorm with razorhead, aren't you."   
  
"Yeah, I've had the pleasure of her company for more than a year now."   
  
"Well, all next week, can you try and make sure she doesn't get her hands on any gear. The last thing we need is for her to be stoned in the witness box, and we don't need her doing cold turkey either."   
  
"I'll do my best, but you know what it's like in here, drugs is one of the easiest things to hide."   
  
"Just try for me. I need Alison McKenzy to be as sharp as her haircut."   
  
"Yvonne," Denny continued slowly, "Snowball is gonna go down, isn't she? 'Cause if she doesn't, and she's put back on the wing, I swear I'll kill her." Yvonne reached forward and gripped Denny's shoulders.   
  
"Listen to me, Denny. I know you're still hurting over Shaz, and a part of you probably always will, but getting yourself a life sentence isn't what Shaz would have wanted you to do." Denny's voice rose.   
  
"And how the hell do you know that? You never even liked her!" Yvonne took a deep breath.   
  
"Denny," She said quietly. "Shaz loved you. I might not have known her very well, but I sure as hell know she wouldn't have wanted you to get sent back here for years on end. We all want Snowball to get sent down for what she did to Shaz, all of us Denny. I think Shaz would want you to be strong for her now. I need you to promise me you're gonna be okay over the next fortnight, because by the time your next visiting comes round, we'll probably know one way or the other. Can you promise me that, Denny?" Tears were visibly falling down Denny's cheeks by this time.   
  
"Yeah, okay," She said shakily. Yvonne handed her a tissue and then gave her a hug.   
  
"I love you, man," Said Denny. This touched Yvonne enormously and to her slight shame it brought tears to her eyes.   
  
"I love you too, Denny, and I'll be here to see you every fortnight till you get out. I promise." As the bell rang for the end of visiting, Yvonne gave Denny one last squeeze. As Denny was led away by Yvonne's old nemesis, Sylvia, Karen Betts gently approached her.   
  
"Are you okay?" She said quietly. Yvonne tried to surreptitiously wipe her eyes.   
  
"I sure as hell know that Denny isn't," She said as a way of avoiding the question. "Please could someone keep an eye on her this weekend, because until that bitch is made to pay for Shaz's death, Denny can't even try and move on."   
  
"Yvonne, I'll do what I can, but she isn't the only one on the edge because of the trial being next week."   
  
"I don't want her pulling any stunts with a rope or a razor and the state she was in today, nothing would surprise me."   
  
"Spoken like a true mum," Said Karen. all Yvonne could say in response was,   
  
"Denny means a lot to me."   
  
Over a year ago, Yvonne would never have been so frank with any prison officer, but having made it her mission to visit Denny every fortnight since she'd been released, Yvonne and Karen had continued to develop their friendship from those first tentative days when Ritchie had been in hospital, and Karen's career had been threatened with privatisation. After Yvonne's visits to Denny, it was not uncommon for Karen and Yvonne to catch up over a drink in a nearby bar. they shared a love for good scotch and good cigarettes, which had only assisted in the gradual building of their friendship. When Karen had asked Di Barker to make sure someone kept an eye on Denny, Yvonne said,   
  
"Are you busy tonight?"   
  
"Actually," Said Karen, "I'd planned to wade my way through a load of applications seeing as I'm not going to be here for much of the next couple of weeks, so no, I'm not busy at all." Karen displayed the clear lack of dedication to her paperwork with a small grin.   
  
"Would you like to come round for dinner?" Yvonne didn't know where this invitation had come from and seemingly neither did Karen. "If I'm honest," Said Yvonne, "Lauren's going out clubbing with Cassie and I could do with some intelligent company." Karen laughed.   
  
"Now I know you're getting desperate. But yes, that'd be nice. It'll give me an opportunity to finally see this infamous place of yours."   
  
"I won't ask what you've heard about my house," Said Yvonne smiling and rifling through her pockets. Not finding what she wanted she asked,   
  
"Have you got a pen?" As Karen handed her a pen and a piece of paper, they suddenly stared at each other. This was exactly the routine Ritchie had gone through with Karen that first time he had visited Yvonne. He had asked Karen for a pen, to write down his mobile number, and here was another Atkins asking Karen for a pen to write down an address. Neither of them mentioned the feeling of Deja Vu, but it was something to be filed away, to be dealt with when its relevant time for examination arrived. As Yvonne walked out to her car, and Karen walked up to her office, Karen's thoughts drifted back to that day when everything for this trial had been set in motion. Where would her life have been, she thought, had they all not been preparing for Larkhall's most monumental trial since the Nikki Wade appeal. What would they all be doing, had snowball Merriman and Ritchie Atkins not been charged. 


	2. Part Two

Part Two  
  
Karen's gaze was riveted to the little white card with the floral swirl in the corner. This had accompanied the bouquet of flowers that Yvonne had tenderly cared for, her reassurance of Ritchie's love for her which looked so innocent in its purity of form but she knew now was a baited trap. "Don't place your Bets till the rod's in K's bag. Love you mum. Ritchie."   
  
Her lips twisted in contempt at it. She studied the script carefully and looking closer, she took in the smooth regularity of writing of the last few words. "Love you mum, Ritchie."   
  
This must have been written by the woman at Interflora as she took down Ritchie's words as he dictated the order and at least the woman at Interflora was genuine, as genuine as anyone doing her job as a profession to the best of her ability, as genuine as she is as Wing Governor in a women's prison. Or then again, knowing herself what a lazy arse Ritchie is, he probably asked the woman to write something 'dead nice, as a present for a mother' and it was probably her words, not his. Yet, Snowball must have inserted extra words on the card to fit her twisted schemes . It must have been from how Jim Fenner described the scene. Irony upon irony, that she trusts a devious misogynist rapist bastard over an even more devious scheming murdering cow.   
  
She looked at it and, she had to hand it to Snowball, it was a very clever, pretty accurate copy of the original words, written by a woman who had all the time in the world to scheme and connive. The script was formed in a likeness of an average caring human being but somehow lacking the master touch as Snowball does. Still, it was good enough to fool an average person in a hurry, even good enough to fool Jim Fenner, of all people. And, the perfect Snowball touch, it appeared to give a guarded message that Ritchie was planning with Yvonne Atkins to arrange a breakout, what more natural for a loving son to do for his mother, when all the while, it was just another deception, just another act. Karen's lips tightened in anger as she carefully took the card to hand it to the police who were waiting to interview her.   
  
  
  
At another disconnected point in time, Karen strode into the PO's room, which had its familiar workaday atmosphere, untidy files in the corner and Sylvia's 'Charles and Di' mug in its rightful place. She was grinning to herself when she brought in a copy of the Sun with Larkhall's middle pages spread how the unselfish PO's of Larkhall apprehended a dangerous and notorious woman murderer while on a 'fishing trip' to Amsterdam. A badly composed 'police picture' of Shell Dockley was positioned left of centre in all of its sinister unreality and the spokesman, Jim Fenner, reassured the readership that they were not on a 'porn fest.' The 'cracking down on crime' story wrote itself in the minds of the Sun readers but she knew better. On any other day than today, she would have cheerfully pinned it on the notice board to see the bastard squirm but not today. The paper was discreetly hidden away amongst the bunch of files she was holding.   
  
Jim Fenner spotted the paper and gave her a sideways scowl, wondering what she was going to do with the paper.  
  
"Right, if Di hasn't told you already, the number one is back in the building today."  
  
"Honeymoon over already." Di's mournful tones told their own story.  
  
"I've just had the preliminary report of the police investigation into the bomb explosion in the library and I am happy to say," and here Karen felt the enormity of announcing the history to be written "that they consider that there is sufficient evidence for charges to be pressed. Snowball Merriman is to be charged with arson and manslaughter and Ritchie Atkins is to be charged as an accessory……. "  
  
A round of cheers swept the room and cut short the speech Karen had carefully planned to hit the right note, not 'string up the bitch' and not going soft on her either. For the first time in her life, she saw Sylvia positively beaming at her and Fenner, for once, genuine in his praise for her and that the 'lads at the CPS weren't letting us down.' The glow of satisfaction Karen had felt when she first opened the report was relived in the very palpable feelings of solidarity amongst the PO's, between the unlikeliest of allies and Karen gave herself in to that feeling. After all, she was as steeped in its tradition as anyone even though she loathed the part of it that treated prisoners as animals  
  
"Jim," Karen eventually said. "You can go down the block and tell Merriman that she can stay there for her own protection. You'll need to have some thoughts about the trial as both of us are bound to be called as witnesses, you as her personal officer and me as Wing Governor and the part we played in the fire and the run up to it. I'm sure I don't need to tell you but you'll need to be absolutely clear of everything in your mind."  
  
"Right, Karen." Jim Fenner's face wore its usual impassive professional mask   
  
Karen went on to announce that Buki Lester's burns are healing well but she was to be kept on the hospital wing for another week and announced the offer of listening therapy for those who survived the fire but Karen was aware that the news was only half heard. as the prison officers left the room, cheering.   
  
Yvonne could remember that moment as she stood with Denny watching the packed PO's room and wondered as always what the screws were cooking up there. At that time Betts was 'one of them', she reflected in amusement now,  
  
"What's the screws sounding so happy about, Denny?" Yvonne remembered asking.  
  
"They're sending us to Alcatraz and they've won the lottery. Nothing else could make them so happy, man."   
  
In the PO's room, Karen remained behind, her smile beginning to fade. Life's irony dictated that the man she most loathed and detested and who had raped her was destined to be in the same witness box as her, on the same side. Nailing Snowball and Ritchie wasn't going to be as easy as the PO's think.  
  
Jim Fenner walked down the narrow stone steps to the bowels of the ancient building and strolled the few dark yards to the block. Wrenching the door open, he stared with loathing at Snowball.  
  
"Good old British justice, eh. Get out of your strips. Looks like you'll be charged with setting off the bomb that's got your fingerprints written all over it, oh and murdering Shaz Wiley. The only appearance you'll make on stage is in the dock of the Old Bailey. Don't think there'll be any paparazzi after you though." At moments like these, Fenner got a kick out of laying it on with a trowel and seeing them squirm. PC conscious Betts and Stewart always disapproved but what's wrong with a little bit of private vengeance?  
  
"You can sign an ap and you can stay on voluntary segregation till your trial date comes up." Fenner finished, deliberately playing his pauses before speaking to wind Snowball up.  
  
"You mean, I have a choice of going back to the wing?" Snowball looked at Fenner with disbelieving eyes, trying to focus on his face in the gloom to figure out what game he was playing. He was like a so-called Hollywood agent, only with a British accent.   
  
"Not if it was up to me." Fenner replied shortly.  
  
Snowball studied the piece of paper. Never sign any contract blind, all the books about Hollywood told her. Then she casually ripped it up to Fenner's incredulous eyes. The cow really does want to die.  
  
" The show must go on, Mr. Fenner." Snowball said with that sneer in her voice.  
  
What is the silly cow after, Fenner thought. Atkins and Blood, for a kick off will tear her to pieces. Then he looked carefully in Snowball's defiant face and noticed the way that Snowball kept that lock of fair hair hanging down her cheekbone instead of pulled back to show off her face in all her vain self absorbed perfection. After all, that was what Hollywood actresses were like, she's read it in the magazines. Fenner leant forward and brushed that lock of hair back and saw the ugly marks left by Atkins' talons.  
  
"What, phantom of the opera." He sneered to Snowball's discomfiture.  
  
"I'm not scared once the girls have heard my side of the story."  
  
"You must think that your tits are made of Teflon. Don't you know what they'll do to a murdering bitch who killed one of their own?" Fenner goaded her one last time before slamming the door shut on her. 


	3. Part Three

Part Three  
  
As Yvonne drove towards home, she wondered just what had possessed her to invite Karen round for dinner. This was Yvonne Atkins here, and Yvonne Atkins never did things on the spur of the moment. At least, not until now it seems. She pulled in to the Tesco car park and briefly wondered what on earth she could cook. She wandered aimlessly round the supermarket for a while, trying to dredge up some inspiration. Eventually, she picked up some vegetables for a salad, as well as some good-looking strawberries and a couple of very nice fillet steaks. One of the best things for Yvonne about being out of prison, besides the obvious comfort of her own large house with the added bonus of a swimming-pool, was being able to spend pretty much what she liked. There was no more Body bag telling her how many cigarettes she could have or that she couldn't have any for a fortnight because the prison was on lock down.   
  
When she reached home, she put the food in the fridge, and as it was only five o'clock and Karen wasn't due till after seven, Yvonne went for a swim in her incredibly decadent outdoor pool. Charlie might have been one of the biggest bastards she'd ever known, but when it came to houses he'd certainly had style. It had been his idea to have the pool put in when Lauren and Ritchie had still been at school. As the sun beat down on her and she lay on her back, gently drifting from one end to the other, Yvonne felt like all the dirt from the prison was slowly being washed out of her soul. It didn't matter that Yvonne had spent nearly four years in that place, every time she went to visit Denny, she came away feeling filthy, as if the very air of the place could insinuate its way under her skin. After half an hour of luxuriating in the warm tranquility of her garden, she showered to get the chlorine out of her hair and renewed her make up. Yvonne had been and always would be a proud woman. Not even for someone who was becoming a close friend would she present a face devoid of cosmetic enhancement.   
  
As Karen drove passed Sloan Square tube station and along Sloane street itself, she reflected that this was one part of London where she would never be able to shop. Only someone like Yvonne or Cassie could afford to frequent the many fashionable boutiques that came in to her line of vision. But as she drove further out of the city center and towards the suburbs, she began to wonder just what the Atkins house would look like. It's a well known fact that you can tell a lot about a person by what they have on their coffee tables, but Karen knew that this evening's date for want of a better word would certainly be a learning experience. When she finally pulled up in front of the address Yvonne had scribbled down for her, she was stunned.   
  
"So, this is how the other half lives," She thought as she made her way through the small group of very expensive cars on the wide expanse of driveway in front of the house. She recognised Yvonne's red Farari but she couldn't put an identity to any of the others. As she rang the doorbell, she had a burning curiosity to see the rest of the house and possibly a deeper level to see how it's occupant lived.   
  
When Yvonne heard the doorbell, she put down the knife she'd been using to chop the salad, dried her hands on a tea towel and, wondering quite what she thought she was doing, went to answer the door. Yvonne's large black Alsatian, Trigger, had ran in to the hall and was stood staring at Karen through the glass, giving her an impression of enormous gaping jaws and huge pointed teeth. Yvonne only had to yell,   
  
"Shut up!" once for it to calm down. When she let Karen in, she said, "Don't worry, he's all talk and no action these days like most blokes." Karen stepped in to the hall and after handing Yvonne a bottle of Chablis, she bent down to stroke the dog. Karen hadn't had a dog since her childhood, and to suddenly become acquainted with one was a bit like coming home.   
  
"What's his name?" She asked Yvonne, letting the dog sniff her hand, almost as if to reassure him she wasn't any enemy.   
  
"his name's Trigger," Grinned Yvonne, pleased to see Karen so at home with one of the fixtures of her household. "Charlie named him after his favourite hobby." As the full meaning of this hit Karen, she straightened up and stared at Yvonne. After a slightly stunned silence where Karen wondered if any other household animals would be named after the parts of a gun, both women laughed. It seemed to break the ice. Leading Karen through to the kitchen, Yvonne asked her what she would like to drink.   
  
"I'd love a scotch if there's one going," Said Karen, knowing that whisky would feature prominently in any place Yvonne stayed for any length of time. When Yvonne had put the Chablis in the fridge and poured them both a scotch, she returned to preparing the salad.   
  
"Can I do anything to help?" Asked Karen. Yvonne smiled.   
  
"No thanks, it's fine. I got salad, fillet steaks and strawberries, is that okay?"   
  
"Wonderful," Sighed Karen in anticipation. "I haven't had anyone cook for me after a hard week's work for a long time." Yvonne placed the prepared salad and the washed strawberries in the fridge and picked up her glass.   
  
"I bet your curiosity's on overdrive," She said, leading Karen out to the garden.   
  
"Just a little," Admitted Karen ruefully. "It isn't every day I get to see the house that I've been speculating about for nearly a year." She tactfully left out the fact that Yvonne's having very obvious criminally earned money behind her would clearly be a factor in this speculation.   
  
"Charlie bought this place when Ritchie was seven and Lauren was three. I think he was planning for more kids to fill up the space. The house itself was quite small then but we just kept adding to it." Leading Karen across the terrace and toward the steps that went down to the pool, she said, "He put this in when Ritchie was in his teens." when Karen saw the oval pool with steps at one end, and a mosaic of two entwined dolphins on the bottom, she just stared.   
  
"I never knew people had outdoor pools this close to central London." Yvonne realised that this was Karen's way of trying to cover up her shock and awe of seeing just what the Atkins money had been spent on over the years. Trigger had followed them outside and now made his way round to the other side of the pool where began a long stretch of lawn which eventually ended in trees and a high stone wall. He lay down in the shade of one of the trees and lazily thumped his tail. They sat down under a green tasseled umbrella and Karen, for the first time that day began to relax. They both lit up cigarettes and Yvonne said,   
  
"Charlie might have been a wanker of the highest order, but when it came to building, he did have style." Karen grinned.   
  
"And I know that with most men like Charlie Atkins, most of the decorating will have been left to his wife. You should be very proud of this place." Yvonne smiled widely.   
  
"Cheers. Here's to the end of what's probably been a horrendous week for you."   
  
"I won't disagree with that," Said Karen taking a long drink of her scotch. "when I left them this afternoon, Di and Sylvia were arguing over who wasn't going to take Merriman to court next week."   
  
"Can't Fenner do any of it?" Asked Yvonne.   
  
"No, not while he's appearing as a prosecution witness he can't."   
  
"So they both want the joys of accompanying a psychopath to the dock?" Yvonne was slightly astounded.   
  
"I think Di Barker gets off on the notoriety of it all, and Sylvia just wants a day out. Supervising one worthless con has to be easier than supervising fifty. At least that's how she sees it."   
  
"Typical Body bag," Yvonne laughed. Karen grinned.   
  
"Do you know something, people have called her that ever since I've been at Larkhall."   
  
"I might be wrong," Replied Yvonne, "But I think it was Zandra who came up with that one."   
  
"I shouldn't say it," Said Karen, clearly having no qualms about it at all, "But it suits her."   
  
After a while, they went in and Yvonne briefly grilled the two excellent-looking steaks. Putting the two plates and the bowl of salad on a tray with some cutlery, Yvonne stood in front of the large wine rack which took up a good proportion of one kitchen wall. Eventually selecting a bottle of Chatteau Neuve de Pape and putting it on the tray with two glasses, she carried it outside and they ate under the evening sun. Karen having taken notice of the stock of equally good reds and whites in the wine rack said,   
  
"Who's the wine buff around here then?" Yvonne smiled.   
  
"A fascination with good wine was probably the one saving grace my father ever had," She said, swallowing a mouthful of medium-rare steak. "It's something I guess I inherited from him. Charlie used to act to his mates like he knew one from the other, but he always used to get me to pick them out beforehand." Karen laughed.   
  
"So you didn't take part in any brewing in Larkhall?" She hadn't known whether or not Larkhall and Yvonne's time there would be a safe subject, but the full bodied red in her glass had given her courage.   
  
"Good god, no," Said Yvonne in disgust. "That stuff the Costa Cons made was vile. If I wanted any alcohol in there I made sure it came in already bottled." As the evening progressed, Karen gradually found it easier and easier to relax on Yvonne's territory. Yvonne didn't flaunt her wealth, it was simply something that was part of her and that she accepted as being part of her. Yvonne lived a rich, sometimes decadent life simply because she could, not because she desperately needed it. Yvonne knew herself well enough to know that possessions didn't make a person what they were, but what that person did with their possessions. Karen began to see Yvonne's surroundings as just part of the way Yvonne had lived for a long, long time. They hadn't prevented Yvonne from suffering one of the worst fates any human being can suffer, to be locked up behind bars for a number of years. Under her expensive clothes and behind the appearance of her house, her pool and the wine she liked to serve, Yvonne was still a normal woman, capable of being hurt by the same things as Karen, and just as vulnerable to the whims of a man she had once loved. They passed a relaxing evening, finding it easier to talk the more wine they consumed, until Yvonne found herself wondering why she'd never asked Karen over before. When Karen eventually left, full of steak and strawberries, and a little too much wine to drive, she felt content. Yes, the trial was starting on Monday, but tonight had been wonderful. Tonight had been for both of them, the calm before the storm. 


	4. Part Four

Part four  
  
"Your round or mine, Lauren" Cassie asked, and the very attractive dark haired woman made her way to the bar in the spacious pub they had taken themselves to.   
  
Cassie smiled nostalgically to herself that this was the place that had been the start of many of her affairs in the past. Besides, she felt comfortable here.  
  
Lauren was very gratified at the good service at this pub. Cassie had chosen well. No sooner had she got to the front of the queue than the barmaid smiled in a very friendly way and had served her with a couple of glasses of white wine. She could think of some places where she was propping up the bar for ages trying to get served, trying to catch the barmaid's eye and tut-tutting under her breath that the silly cow was almost deliberately ignoring her and serving some guy who thought he was God's gift to women who had jumped the queue. This barmaid was dead friendly and had a chat while Lauren paid for their drinks.  
  
It was a typical hot summer's day and the pub doors were left open and the large overhead brass fan on the ceiling was gently rotating, wafting a tiny flavour of cool air to the table where Cassie and Lauren sat.  
  
"Is it girls night out here, Cassie? Only a couple of guys here and they aren't exactly my type. Julian Clarry never exactly turns me on."  
  
"You could say that, Lauren." Cassie smiled to herself. She wondered to herself how a woman like Lauren as street smart as you could get, who had knocked around a lot, who had the Atkins brains hadn't worked out the obvious. Still, Cassie thought to herself, she was a respectably partnered woman with kids and, really, she chose the pub with the nicest feel about it where she felt comfortable to have a quiet chat with a mate. All the other pubs on a night like this would be packed out solid and you needed to be able to lip-read to have any chance of a natter and ignore the drunks.  
  
"So where's Roisin then, Cassie."  
  
Cassie sighed. Since Roisin divorced Aiden, she had thought divorce means,' good riddance', 'you're history' but with two children, it wasn't that easy. They had spent more time with solicitors than she thought possible and all the endless haggling about access and maintenance seemed to be designed to line the pockets of knobbing men in expensive suits speaking in patronising accents. These sort of guys reminded her of the wankers she had to deal with when she started work in the bank. Roisin had gone up to see Aiden to ask him to look after the children while they attended the trial. It would crop up in school holiday time, something she was starting to be accustomed to as part of her life cycle.   
  
"She's gone to visit that waste of space and persuade him to look after the kids while the trial's on. Jesus and I thought I had trouble in handling clients when I worked at the bank. Roisin has the patience of a saint in trying to get Aiden to agree to anything. I'd end up ramming this bottle" and here Cassie gestured to the small bottle on the table" right down his knobbing mouth."  
  
Lauren smiled in appreciation at Cassie. She hadn't got many mates and when Cassie first came round to visit Mum on her release, she had got chatting to her and hit it off right away. It made her blink the casual way she talked about her partner and that that partner was a married woman. Hiring hit men who pretended to do pizza deliveries, growing up hearing Charlie's drug deals going down and strange thuggish enforcers coming round all hours having a drink with Charlie, yes, that was part of her life but where she grew up, everyone was 'straight.   
  
"Hi Cassie." An attractive woman with long dark hair floated by, smiling at Cassie. "Thought you'd hidden yourself away."  
  
"Yeah, well, I've got company." muttered Cassie. "Private company, if you know what I mean" glaring daggers at the tart whom she'd once had a fling with once and regretted it.  
  
"I can take a hint, Cassie. Enjoy yourself." The woman smiled and floated off elsewhere.  
  
"Someone I used to go out with." Cassie said. "She's bad news. No friend of mine either."   
  
It was moments like this that Lauren found strange. Cassie was a mate like she had had mates before and her sexuality faded into the background nearly all the time. Cassie had a similar very direct quality, less 'in your face' than she used to be once. Lauren realised that Cassie was simply insecure when she first met her, wanting her approval as Yvonne's daughter, very much anxious not to blow it that she overcompensated. It didn't take long for Cassie to relax. In turn, Lauren learned to drop her guard with her. There weren't many straight ahead people around in her life that didn't lie, manipulate, tell all sort of tall stories to impress the Charlie's of this world. Cassie was a refreshing change. If Lauren was talking a load of crap, Cassie would tell her that but never in a way that would hurt, just out of friendly concern for her.   
  
"How well did you know my mum in Larkhall?" asked Lauren. Since Mum had come home she had been quiet about her experiences. Sure, Lauren heard all the funny stories like the time Body bag went in and frisked the one genuine solicitor out of the pretend 'briefs' that she had fixed up and Lauren laughed along with them. She had seen brief glimpses of it in the times she'd visited Larkhall and the sight of Mum in the orange bib was imprinted on her mind. The letters she'd sent out were obviously written to hide how down she felt sometimes.  
  
"Well," smiled Cassie, "In one of my madder moments, I fancied Yvonne and thought I could get off with her. Sorry Lauren" Cassie added hastily.  
  
"It's all right, Cassie. Mum is over sixteen. She can do what she likes as long as she doesn't get hooked on some bastard. One is enough." Lauren's lips tightened, thinking of Charlie and that scrubber with bleach blond hair the last time she saw him.  
  
"Rest assured. Your mum is totally straight. If I couldn't pull her, then……….."   
  
After thinking she'd put her foot in it again, well done Cassie, she loosened up and gently reminisced about Yvonne and the memories that, for all her own brashness and apparent toughness, Yvonne was the real thing. Yvonne was the one whose authority like invisible   
  
strings kept things together. She never forgot the scorn in Yvonne's eyes when she had been stupid enough to run a betting operation on a fight between Maxi and Shaz. There was no malice in it and the next day or so, Yvonne was back to her old self. There was no moody sulking but if anyone really crossed the line, there was no crawling back.  
  
"You're a lot like Yvonne, Lauren. She was always talking about you and she thinks the world of you……like I do." And Cassie, for the first time in her life blushed. For the first time in her knobbing life she's been with another woman, and what sounded like a 'chat up' line wasn't. It was a simple statement of respect for a woman she knew with stone cold certainty was wiser than herself and her daughter who had that same strength beyond her years.  
  
The evening wended its way along in its delightful way and they ordered in the drinks at regular intervals. The sounds of the bar got louder Lauren could put the booze away and Cassie felt compelled to keep up with her which was a big mistake.  
  
"Can't take the pace, eh, Cassie. If you can't stand the heat then stay out of the kitchen." Lauren's mocking smile wobbled before Cassie's eyes, as she thought, oh no, not another drink.  
  
"I'm absolutely pissed, Lauren." moaned Cassie. I'll never drink again after this night. Just as well the kids are away, seeing a drunken mum come reeling in."   
  
Lauren smiled to herself to hear Cassie, that very modern and 'out gay' woman, sound so exactly like every other mother she had seen, hyper anxious not to disgrace herself 'in front of the children' while to Cassie, the world seemed to be seen through a distorting mirror that kept moving and wouldn't settle down.  
  
When the landlady called out for last orders, Cassie lurched to her feet and Lauren caught her before she fell. Holding her tightly round the shoulder, Lauren steered the smaller woman towards the exit while the couple cuddling in the corner saw them go in a sentimental haze that another couple seemed happy and set up for the night.   
  
The barmaid sighed to herself. You win some, you lose some. Anyway she was knackered.  
  
In the back seat of the black cab, Cassie was slumped in a corner while Lauren called out to the driver, the other side of the glass grille. She would have to somehow navigate Cassie into the spare bedroom, she thought, as the street lights set against the dark whizzed by and it lurched all the way to Yvonne's house.  
  
Once managing a three handed trick in fumbling for her keys, nudging the heavy front door open and gripping Cassie tightly so she didn't slump down on the ground, Lauren needed all her strength to heave Cassie step by step, up the wide green carpeted staircase. Her own room was nearest, she was knackered so, to hell with it, she manoeuvred Cassie through the door. Suddenly she tripped over an object and they both went flying through the air, crash onto her large, comfortable double bed nearby.  
  
Shit, Lauren, I will have woken the dead.  
  
"What the bloody hell are you doing, Lauren?" I've known you bring strange fellas back from a night on the town but this is bloody new for you." Yvonne's throaty, irritated tones, fresh from suddenly disturbed sleep tones reverberated round the room. Lauren could see her eyes squinting at her as she tried to adjust to the sudden bright light and to make sense of what appeared to be in front of her eyes. She didn't think Lauren was that type or so she had thought. Lauren blushed a pretty shade of pink with was another new thing for her. Atkins don't do blushing.   
  
A half-conscious Cassie, crashed out helplessly on Lauren's bed, sleepily grinned in amusement and seemed to lie there for ages with a nice warm secure feeling inside of her. Above her head with her lover next to her in the same cell, the electric light seemed to stare down at her and describe elegant circles over her head making her dizzy to look at it .Then a well known, authoritative voice seemed to cut through her alcohol haze.  
  
"Jesus Christ, where the hell's the night shift gone? And what's this drunken orgy going on here? Lights out everyone."  
  
Oh shit, that means we're up for adjudication with Betts tomorrow and we're going to lose our nobbing privileges. I'm really really sorry, Roisin babes, she slurred drunkenly, it's all my fault as she wondered why the nobbing screws didn't put the light out like they said they would. She wanted to sleep more than anything else right then. 


	5. Part Five

Part Five  
  
On the Saturday morning, Jo Mills QC was sat in her garden, going through the mountain of evidence for the upcoming trial. She had prosecuted many murderers in her time, but she didn't think she'd encountered anyone with quite so much audacity as Tracy Pilkinton, or Snowball Merriman, as everyone seemed to think of her. Jo knew that the next two weeks were going to be extremely hard work. But there was one good thing on the horizon, John would be presiding over this trial. She didn't know how he'd managed to swing this trial, because it was full of possible bombshells and outed cover ups by the prison service. Although Jo knew that at least three of her witnesses would be senior members of prison staff, she was also aware that they would be at all costs trying to eliminate any blame on their part for Merriman having been able to smuggle in explosives and construct a bomb. Looking down her list of witnesses, Jo reflected that it would be an interesting trial if nothing else. Three of her witnesses were prison staff, two were ex-cons and one a current inmate. They alone would provide the central attraction of the circus ring of the Old Bailey. The defendants would end up being a mere side show compared to this lot. She also thought it more than likely that John would be asking as many questions of the witnesses as possible. He wasn't the kind of man to pass up an opportunity of questioning the wife of the late Charlie Atkins, for example, and seeing that one of the defendants was the gangster's moll's son, Jo grinned. There would be no end of fireworks with this trial. Jo had met and talked to all of her witnesses, no silk would ever think of doing otherwise, and she knew that perhaps the most credible and honest of her witnesses was Yvonne Atkins herself. Despite having been the wife and probably the backbone of the east London mob, she was open, honest and certainly wasn't backward in speaking her mind. Jo grinned as she thought of a possible verbal tussle between John Deed and Yvonne Atkins. That one would almost be worth videoing, even if that would have been breaking court rules. When the person stood watching her said,   
  
"What are you smiling about?" She looked up slightly startled. Mr. Justice Deed, or John to his nearest and dearest was standing by the side gate to her garden watching her. Opening the gate he walked over to her and sat down next to her on the garden bench. Leaning over to kiss his cheek, she said,   
  
"Where did you spring from?"   
  
"I was at a loose end, so thought I'd see how busy you are." Jo gestured at the pile of papers on the garden table.   
  
"You're at a loose end? I don't know how with this trial coming up on Monday. You should have more reading than I do."   
  
"I was rather hoping you'd make me a coffee," John said with a smile. Placing her legal dictionary on top of the paper to stop the breeze dispersing her entire case over the garden, Jo moved towards the kitchen and her favourite choice of caffeine. As she stood at the sink filling the kettle, John asked,   
  
"So, what were you grinning about?"   
  
"Oh, just the thought of you tangling with one of my witnesses, Yvonne Atkins." John laughed.   
  
"Yes, I've a feeling that might be an experience for all concerned."   
  
"Well, as long as you don't manage to do Cantwell's job for him and pull her evidence to shreds, she's the best witness I've got."   
  
"The most reliable witness you have is the wife of a gangster?"   
  
"Was the wife of a gangster, he's dead now. You might remember how he was blown to bits on the steps of the Bailey about two years ago."   
  
"Oh yes," Said John, clearly remembering something. "And they never found the person who did it, did they?"   
  
"No, and I'd appreciate it if that little can of worms wasn't opened this week."   
  
"So, you think she had something to do with it after all?"   
  
"I don't know," Said Jo truthfully. "I've spoken to her a couple of times, we've gone over her evidence for this trial and she seems honest enough, for someone who hired a hit man, that is. Besides, she was still in prison when that happened. If I was being asked to put my money on anyone for the murder of Charlie Atkins, I'd be betting on the daughter, Lauren. But that case was closed long ago, and far be it from me to try and re-open it."   
  
"And especially not before you've convicted the son," He said quietly.   
  
"Don't even think about it, John," Jo said, a frown marring the unobtrusive beauty of her face.   
  
"Okay," He said, "Point taken. this trial's going to be interesting if nothing else."   
  
"Have you come here to gen up on my witnesses as usual?" She said, clearly having seen this routine from him before.   
  
"Who better to give me an insight?" He asked.   
  
"As long as I have a cast iron promise from you that you won't jeopardise them in court."   
  
"Come on, Jo, you know me better than that. I no longer make promises that I can't swear to keep."   
  
"Do you know something?" She said, slightly rising to the bate. "I'm beginning to think the LCD's right."   
  
"God forbid," He said. "If Sir Ian Rochester and his sidekick Lawrence James are ever right about anything, it's a sad day for the rest of us."   
  
"I just mean their little argument about barristers appearing in front of people they have a history with, like you and me for instance. You do this every time there's an interesting trial with me acting for the prosecution, though you've even done it with the defence on a couple of occasions."   
  
"done what?" He said, still trying to goad her. Jo cast a long suffering glance at the fresh Brazilian coffee she was taking out of the freezer.   
  
"This! Asking me to give you the lowdown on my witnesses. The really sad thing is that I always capitulate to your request." John grinned.   
  
"what, a little like the old days, just a different request?" Jo lifted the packet of coffee, as if to throw it at him, then as if realising the value of Brazilian coffee, simply laughed.   
  
"I'm too good to you," She said, filling the caffetiere.   
  
When they were again sat outside, Jo began going through her line up.   
  
"First there's Karen Betts, the wing governor from Larkhall. She's complicated because she started an affair with Ritchie Atkins, just before Merriman came to Larkhall. He managed to use his affiliation with her to bring suspicion on her and to plant the gun in her handbag."   
  
"Really nice guy, our Mr. Ritchie Atkins," Mused John. Jo continued.   
  
"Then there's Yvonne Atkins, and you know enough about her to be going on with. Following her there's a prison officer James Fenner, and I don't like him one little bit. Apart from Lawrence James, he's the slimiest, creepiest man I've ever had the misfortune to meet. Then there's the prison governor, Neil Grayling, and he's definitely got something to hide. I'm not sure what yet, but he could probably challenge Ritchie Atkins for a stake in the oily snake of the century awards. After him, there's a current inmate of Larkhall, Alison McKenzy, an ex-inmate, Barbara Hunt, and one of the visitors who was there for the open day when the explosion took place."   
  
"Sounds like you've got it all wrapped up to me," Said John, clearly impressed with her array of witnesses.   
  
"I'll keep the jury entertained, that's for sure," replied Jo cynically. "but this isn't wrapped up by any means, John. I haven't even started and I know that this ride is going to be one of the rockiest yet. You've got to have guts to do all the things those two have done, and Merriman's guts certainly haven't run out up to now. She's come this far, and she isn't going to give up anytime in the near future." 


	6. Part Six

Part Six  
  
Sir Ian Rochester looked out of the window of his spacious Whitehall office wondering why fate had such a nasty sense of irony and playing jokes at his expense. His role in life was in smoothing out awkward areas in the relationship between the administration of the Lord Chancellor's Department and the proud, bewigged judges whom from time immemorial were free to run their courts the way they saw fit. It took certain bonhomie in being able to tactfully remind the odd judge who got the bit between his teeth and sound off in ways that caused political embarrassment. OK to say these things in the Carlton Club when it was known no one would talk, after all, they all went to Oxford together didn't they? With his combined gifts of ever so gentle threat, a velvet glove worn over an iron hand, and his alternative guise of upmarket used car dealer, he had been effortlessly carried up the promotion ladder. Until, one unkind joke was perpetrated on him, John Deed, who some fool appointed as a circuit judge and became a constant thorn in his side. First time Deed greeted him, he smiled at him but with that look of mockery in his eyes and said something about sitting down over a glass of port and reminiscing about our schooldays, 'the happiest days in our lives.' The fellow went to Oxford too, but the obstinate fellow was a renegade and didn't play the game.   
  
Another very bad joke was the court case of the Crown versus Pilkinton / Atkins.  
  
When he'd heard this one originally, this was an open and shut case that he was sure would never come his way. This common English tart had gone to Hollywood and gone native. She was picked up by the police in Florida where she lived after murdering a photographer. The report said she stabbed him 17 times after getting into an argument. She's sneaked out in disguise right under the noses of the local gun toting American police and caught the next flight home to England. She'd tried to walk through customs in England carrying a large volume of cocaine, enough to put her well into the league of drug smuggling. What caused his blood pressure to rise was that she'd walked through American customs and she had got clean away with it. The officious clods in the police force clapped her into the nearest secure prison which had a space, a place called Larkhall till she could get tried for drug smuggling.   
  
Now our American cousins, with all their gun laws and tough talk now started bleating to us that they wanted the bloody woman tried in Florida for the murder over there. As far as he was concerned, it was quite simple. Their crime was bigger than ours, the woman who called herself Snowball Merriman wants to be an American so she might as well   
  
face justice over there and get her out of our hair.   
  
He thought it such a cut and dried case that the extradition hearing was farmed out to the first judge that took an interest in it. After all the sentence that that Pilkinton woman now serving for smuggling is nothing compared to the murder charge she faces back in Florida…nor the death sentence that almost certainly comes with it. The whole matter went out of his mind while he had other things to do until a copy of the court judgement popped up in his in tray which he casually opened.   
  
Application by the Federal State of Florida, USA for Tracy Pilkinton to be extradited to Florida to be charged for the offence of first degree murder.  
  
At Holborn Crown Court hearing on October 18th 2002, the application for extradition was rejected until the expiry of the custodial sentence in the United Kingdom for smuggling a Class 'A' drug with the intent to supply.  
  
It was held that   
  
The sentence of Tracy Pilkinton on August 7th 2002 was rightfully determined on the charge of unlawfully smuggling in a kilo of cocaine with the intent to supply.  
  
That Tracy Pilkinton should serve the term of imprisonment at Her Majesties Prison for seven years following the sentence   
  
(3) That, on the expiry of this sentence, a fresh application to extradite Tracy Pilkinton   
  
should be submitted by the Federal State of Florida before a freshly constituted court   
  
to determine whether or not Miss Pilkinton is to be brought before the Federal Court   
  
of Florida for the charge of murder of Wayne Kramer, a photographer of the state of   
  
Florida.  
  
Sir Ian skipped through the statement of facts of the double crime until his eye stopped at the relevant paragraphs.  
  
11……………It did not help the case of the Federal State of Florida that the application for extradition was not made contemporaneously, in contravention of international law of which the Plaintiff should have been made well aware. However this is a relative side issue to the matter upon which I must decide……..  
  
12……….The question at the heart of the matter is that Tracy Pilkinton is charged with capital murder in the state of Florida and has been convicted of intent to supply Class A drugs in England. Both events, or alleged events, took place within a matter of hours on the same day in question. The question I have to consider is whether or not both unrelated charges which had they been pursued simultaneously at the same court hearing would have had the result of concurrent or consecutive sentences if Tracy Pilkinton were found guilty on both counts. The judgement by Lord Denning which I find most persuasive is that the sentences would have been consecutive on the grounds that the sentence for the lesser charge would have been otherwise "overlapped" by the sentence for the greater charge. The fact is that, in actual point of fact, the second charge was never put at the court hearing which determined the first charge, is all the more persuasive. I am mindful that the judicial sentence for the charge of murder in Florida can attract the death penalty by electrocution but this matter, for the reasons I have set out in this judgement, is a matter of degree rather than that of principle.  
  
14………..I am mindful of the difficulties I have placed before the Court in the Federal State of Florida in appearing to place an embargo on proceedings against Tracy Pilkington for the charge which there is every expectation that should be pursued. This judgement should not be misconstrued as a legal precedent or test case that a British Citizen can escape the consequences of charges made by another country for crimes which that citizen has committed in that country. It is a matter of international law that the weight and value of evidence should not be diminished by the passage of time in this particular type of case and that so long as the evidence is suitably compiled, including witness statements, then justice for the second charge will be done and be seen to be done, albeit the execution of the justice will be deferred.  
  
Judge Michael Niven October 18th 2002  
  
"Bad news, Sir Ian." Lawrence James broke into his thoughts which, judging by the scowl on his face, was hardly an intuitive leap of the imagination. Sir Ian could have sworn that the light reflecting off his grey shiny suit alerted him to Lawrence James presence fractionally before his loud voice did.  
  
"The worst, Lawrence." Sir Ian's weak angry tones replied."Of all the cases which ought never to have ended up this way, it's that Americanised woman Tracy Pilkinton that Niven was weak-minded enough not to have thrown over to the Americans to deal with and save this Department a lot of trouble. Now the British Taxpayer has to foot the bill, and all the time and trouble also."  
  
"You mean us." Lawrence James cut to the chase or Sir Ian would have waffled on all day.  
  
"That's what I mean, obviously," Sir Ian squinted wondering why Lawrence James hadn't learnt the knack for smoothing out rough edges.  
  
"It isn't too late is it, depending on which judge gets it. He might think it was unsafe to proceed with the trial of fresh charges that, obviously, Niven was unaware of."  
  
"God hopes so, anyway."  
  
"So long as Deed doesn't play God. That would be very unfortunate. Very unfortunate indeed." Sir Ian savoured the last words slowly though exactly unfortunate for whom, Sir Ian in his oblique way never made clear. 


	7. Part Seven

Part Seven   
  
On the morning of Monday the 18th of august, Karen was running round the house like a headless chicken. Keys, make up, purse, cigarettes, none of them was in its proper place this morning. The first blouse she put on, she spilt coffee over, and the second was missing a button. Finally settling on a two piece in light blue, she gathered up what remained of her resolve and left the house. Driving through the center of London on a Monday morning was never fun, but the traffic seemed to be extraordinarily slow today. Everyone seemed to be heading in the direction of the old Bailey, but that must have been her imagination. Then, switching on the radio she discovered just why it was proving so difficult to get to the court this morning. The newsreader on Capital Radio was saying,   
  
"and this week sees the beginning of the trial of the infamous Snowball Merriman and her accomplice Ritchie atkins, son of the late Charlie Atkins, leader of the east London mob for many years. Snowball Merriman is accused of causing the explosion that took place at Larkhall prison in south London in June last year." Karen turned off in disgust.   
  
When she eventually reached the car park of the Old Bailey, she pulled in to a space reserved for witnesses. Within a couple of minutes, Yvonne's red Farari cruised up beside her. As Karen got out of her car, she remembered something she'd meant to say to Yvonne before they went inside the court. Whilst Yvonne was touching up her lipstick, Karen opened the passenger door and slid in next to her.   
  
"Looking forward to the circus?" Said Yvonne dryly, looking at herself in the driving mirror.   
  
"About as much as you are," Replied Karen. "I need to ask you something before we go inside. Are you carrying anything, anything you shouldn't be?" Yvonne gave her a cursory glance and then returned to her face.   
  
"No," She said noncommittally.   
  
"Because they have a trend in courts these days to run a scanner over you looking for anything metal." The words were perfectly innocuous when taken at face value, but they had a marked effect on Yvonne. Her exclamation of "Shit!" appeared to be the word of the day. Dropping the lipstick in her handbag, she leaned down to remove something that was clearly strapped to her ankle, under the leg of her trousers.   
  
"I did wonder," Said Karen dryly. When Karen saw the tiny pistol that so snugly fitted in to the palm of Yvonne's hand, she just stared. Yvonne, sliding out the car stereo felt behind it for the one really safe place her car possessed. Having hidden the gun, she replaced the radio. Karen watched with the kind of fascination onlookers have for horrific road accidents.   
  
"Are you completely bloody stupid?" She asked quietly. Yvonne looked at her.   
  
"No," She said matter-of-factly, "I'd just like to make it through this trial alive, that's all." Karen seemed to relocate the voice that always signified her as a wing governor.   
  
"If they'd found that on you, you'd have been back in Larkhall quicker than the Julies on a bad day. Is that what you want?" Yvonne wasn't in the mood for this first thing on a Monday morning.   
  
"No," She said carefully, trying to keep her anger at Karen's naivety under control. "But do you have any idea just how many contacts those two still have?" It went unsaid that she was referring to Ritchie and Snowball.   
  
"They've both been in segregation for months," Karen persisted. This was too much for Yvonne.   
  
"When will you take off that suit long enough to realise that being down the block means piss all when it comes to getting hold of people on the outside. There's any number of people who would finish me off for Ritchie, most of them used to be business acquaintances of me and Charlie. Karen, even though I've given up all the stuff Charlie was involved in, there are still people out there who have a loaded interest in getting rid of me, and all Ritchie would provide is the excuse."   
  
"I had no idea," Karen said quietly. Yvonne began to calm down.   
  
"That's because I've tried to keep that part of my life under wraps from you. Not because you used to lock me up for a living, but because with you I usually manage to forget all the things I used to be." Karen simply stared at her, slightly stunned by what Yvonne had just said. "So," Yvonne continued, now back to her normal self, "Now that we've both come down off our high horses, shall we go in, because I think we're being spied on by the king of all bastards." Turning to follow the direction of Yvonne's gesturing hand, Karen saw Jim Fenner, standing next to the open door of his Audi, staring at her and Yvonne with such an incredulous look on his face that it made Karen laugh.   
  
"He looks like he's just been offered a quickie from Body bag," Said Yvonne with a grin. Karen didn't know whether to laugh or feel ill at the mental image that brought to mind. As they got out of the car, Karen asked,   
  
"Did you hear the radio on the way here?" Yvonne's expression was rueful.   
  
"Yeah. So much for an impartial jury." As Fenner walked towards them, he said,   
  
"Getting our stories straight already, are we?"   
  
"We've got nothing to hide, Fenner," was Yvonne's terse reply.   
  
"We'll see, Atkins, we'll see," He said, the look of blissful glee on his face almost unnerving to both of them.   
  
"You're going to be the one explaining how he was taken in by a porn movie actress," Continued Yvonne. "Promise you a personal performance if you kept quiet, did she?"   
  
"Shut it, Atkins," Was his only response. "Just because you're on the right side of the bars doesn't mean you always will be." The threat was clear.   
  
"Am I going to be refereeing between you two all day?" Asked Karen.   
  
"Not if you know where your loyalties lie," Said Fenner silkily.   
  
"Good job for Karen they're not with you," Remarked Yvonne. As Fenner took a breath for his next retort, Karen let them have it.   
  
"cut it out, right now, the both of you," She said. "this is neither the time nor the place, and I am not spending hours on end listening to the pair of you sniping at each other. None of us want to be here, but unfortunately we're stuck with each other for the foreseeable." Walking off towards the court building, she left Yvonne and Fenner watching her, slightly feeling like a pair of schoolchildren having been put in their place. "Could wield a whip, that one." Remarked Fenner.   
  
"I wouldn't know," replied Yvonne.   
  
Once inside the Old Bailey, the three of them were shown to one of the many witness rooms. It was a while before the trial was due to start, and Lauren had elected to be picked up by Cassie and roisin on their way there. They were soon joined by Jo Mills. She'd obviously spoken to all her witnesses before this, but this was the first time she'd seen any of them interact with each other.   
  
"Yvonne, you're on first," She said. "That'll probably be this afternoon. They'll have the opening speeches this morning and then break for lunch. I don't expect to call either you Karen or you Jim until tomorrow, but these things aren't set in stone."   
  
"What about the others?" Asked Fenner.   
  
"The other five witnesses haven't been called till later in the week." Jo pulled a piece of paper from one of her numerous notebooks.   
  
"Neil Grayling, Alison McKenzy, Barbara Hunt, Henry Mills and Ajit Kahn." At the last name Yvonne said,   
  
"You what?" Jo looked slightly surprised.   
  
"do you have a problem with this witness?" Yvonne brought her expression back under control.   
  
"No, of course not," She said, clearly trying to convince herself more than anybody else.   
  
"When I spoke to him," Jo went on, "He said that he answer the Chaplin's phone to Ritchie Atkins asking for Snowball Merriman. But then you know this because this is part of your evidence as well."   
  
"Sure," Said Yvonne. "I just didn't expect them to contact him, that's all."   
  
"It was him who contacted the police after the explosion, and we need his evidence to make yours believable." Karen was staring at Yvonne, wondering just what Yvonne was afraid of. Soon after this, Jo left them and Karen volunteered to get some coffee. As soon as she'd left the room, Fenner started in on Yvonne.   
  
"Getting very pally with our Miss Betts aren't you, Atkins?"   
  
"Someone's got to keep an eye on you," Replied Yvonne.   
  
"What's that supposed to mean?" He asked.   
  
"Well," Said Yvonne getting out her cigarettes. "Locked up in a place like that with you all day? Isn't safe for any woman if you ask me."   
  
"Now you listen to me, Atkins," Said Fenner, clearly riled. "Just you stay away from her. She doesn't need your bad influence."   
  
"I think Karen is perfectly capable of deciding who is and isn't a bad influence on her, not that I think anyone could be if they tried." Fenner was about to continue his side of the argument when Karen appeared carrying three cups of machine coffee. At the silence that greeted her, she figured they'd been talking about her. When they'd all lit up cigarettes, they sat in a slightly uneasy silence.   
  
"I can't possibly keep this up for long," Thought Karen, whilst Yvonne was itching to begin another verbal tussle with Fenner, but kerbing her tongue for Karen's sake. In utter frustration Yvonne left, returning five minutes later with a selection of newspapers.   
  
"I got this especially for you," She said, handing Fenner a copy of The Sun, and dumping the others on the table between her and Karen. "It seems the canteen in here sells it to get all the ancient male barristers fired up for their appearance on stage." Digging out a copy of The Times from the pile, she found the crossword and settled in for something slightly more brain taxing than continuously taking the piss out of Fenner. Even that could get boring after a while. Filling in the answer for three across, she briefly wondered whether the judge in this trial read The Times or The Sun before a case. 


	8. Part Eight

Part Eight   
  
John Deed had a rare moment of peace and tranquillity in the morning while Coope passed back and forth. As someone who was unruffled, quiet and organised, she was a necessary part of his existence and was the one clerk who had got used to his habits that drove to distraction some of her predecessors. He stretched back in his chair and opened up the Times from which the useless and unwanted supplements fell out onto the floor. Bending carefully over, he extracted the thin "Sports Supplement" for the educated readers of Hampstead Heath who had the unaccountable desire to 'move with the times' and join the national obsession with footballers and the mysterious and utterly uninteresting differences between the various teams.  
  
"Do I really want to read yet another article about David Beckham?" He sighed, recalling more unpleasant times from his old school when he had pushed at the limits of ducking out of compulsory rugby which was a sport that he loathed and detested. Fencing was the sport which attracted him, the precisely poised, cool nerve articulation of the practiced hand and bodily positioning and the rapidly calculating brain. It was a private sport practiced alone with your best friend who had a similar understanding and appreciation of an ancient skill. As skilled practitioners it rooted them in an unbroken chain back into the Middle Ages in the same way as his calling to the Bar anchored him in England's ancient liberties. Both gave him standards to uphold, much needed in this slipshod modern world. In the same way, he felt that a virtuoso concert violinist occupied the same assured reach back for that strength in tradition. Being steeped in these values, he remained bemused that the fifth raters like Sir Ian Rochester could ever hope to bend him to their will.   
  
While his shapeless musings flitted their way through space and time in the rare moments when he had that luxury, Coope announced that he had two visitors who wanted to see him urgently. A combination of the peremptory knock and Coope's expression told him to expect trouble. John Deed glanced at the headlines for the forthcoming trial of Tracy Pilkinton and Ritchie Atkins and, with no stretch of the imagination, concluded that this may have something to do with the visitors so he carefully folded the paper in two so that the front page was invisible to even the likes of Sherlock Holmes, let alone these two authority figures, as blind as they were arrogant.  
  
John Deed sighed as the besuited forms of Sir Ian Rochester and his overzealous sidekick Lawrence James sat down before he was going to politely offer them to take a seat, as is their habit.  
  
"John, old man" Sir Ian spoke with false heartiness. "We thought we would just drop by while we are in the area and have an informal chat." The fixed smile on Sir Ian's face did not deceive John Deed who noticed the hard glitter in his eye.  
  
"Oh yes." John Deed said in a languid tone. "Pray continue with what you've rushed away from holding the Lord Chancellor's hand and are burning to tell me."  
  
"I suppose you've read all about it in the papers, John old man," Sir Ian continued, grasping for an easy point of entry to his ready made schpiel.  
  
"About what, Sir Ian." John Deed summoned up a convincing appearance of being in total ignorance of Sir Ian's tortuous hinting. Teasing the pair of them gave him mild amusement." I'm a busy man these days so you will have to enlighten me."   
  
Sir Ian's smile became more of a grimace and he reached automatically for a pencil in his inside jacket pocket which he fiddled with and promptly broke in two.  
  
"You know exactly what I'm talking about, Deed. It's on the front page of the Times. Don't you read it, dammit? "Sir Ian's false heartiness reverted to his normal feelings of enmity that was twice as strong as his force of personality. "It's this infernal Tracy Pilkinton trial…….."  
  
John Deed affected an annoyingly leisurely perusal in depth of the article though, in truth, he had combed through it very carefully in relation to the trial documents. In the silence, Sir Ian was shuffling his feet while Lawrence James grew more stony faced.  
  
"We have important business with the Minister shortly. We did not come to be treated with your usual lack of respect." Lawrence James said, breaking the stony silence.  
  
"So what scintillating words of wisdom have you to offer me." John Deed said, laying the papers down knowing full well what they were after.  
  
"Only this, old man." Sir Ian desperately reverted to smarming his way through Deed's priggish obstinacy."It's just that we, in the Lord Chancellor's Department feel that Niven's judgement in the extradition hearing was fundamentally unsound. It did not go down well with the Minister mark my words." Sir Ian's behaviour bordering on the manic."The minister felt that, well reasoned though Niven's judgement was in its way…"  
  
"…..I thought it was well reasoned in every way……" murmured John Deed.  
  
"………it did not take full regard of the feelings of the family of the murdered photographer in Florida. After all, you stand for human justice as, don't we all." Here Sir Ian almost looked as if he was girding up his loins to stand up for the weak."So why not, old chap, and press for this wrong headed judgement to be overturned……….."   
  
They're afraid of political embarrassment, that's all it is, John Deed's inner ear spoke clearly above Sir Ian's blandishments as he carried on in this vein for quite the most repetitious fifteen minutes he had ever endured. At least when he threatened and blustered, the man was out in the open.  
  
"My mind is made up, Ian and well you know, nothing you have said can sway it."John Deed finished in his quiet tones which cut through Sir Ian's noisy outpourings.  
  
Sir Ian glared like a goldfish who had found that banging up against the invisible glass sides of the bowl wasn't going to work. He backed off and tried another angle.   
  
"Another thing, the minister wanted to impress on us, Deed." Sir Ian said ponderously,"Is that the circuit judges have brought on themselves a somewhat elitist and antiquated outlook. In this modern age you should be prepared, shall I say, to bend to the winds of modern times….………Like that Sports supplement which I am sure you have thrown away as part of your exhibitionist way of proclaiming that you are living in a backwater while the rest of the human beings move on elsewhere…… "  
  
"………..Yes , yes, Ian. You will recall our Biology teacher a long time ago who said that the activities of the poor lemmings in simultaneously hurling themselves off a cliff was one not to be admired or emulated. Her words were ones that I remember well. Nice legs as well, I remember," at which point John Deed smiled wickedly.  
  
"As it happens, I am intending to buy a football shirt for my leisure times and show that I have moved up with the times even though a stuffy stick in the mud like you will remain in isolation…."  
  
"Never were any use at rugby at school were you, Ian." murmured John Deed just loud enough to be heard. "You always seemed to develop a mysterious limp just before games. At least I refused to indulge in a barbaric game out of principle………."  
  
Sir Ian finally went red in the face and grasped Lawrence James's silk suit irretrievably creasing the right shoulder pad and hustled him out of the room before Deed revealed more of the weasly sneak of a schoolboy that he had been. He hustled Lawrence James out of the door with more strength and force than his general build suggested he possessed and the door slammed bang shut behind them.  
  
"Didn't they want to stop for a glass of sherry?" Coope asked innocently.  
  
"I'm afraid that they had to dash off to queue up for David Beckham's autograph." John Deed said with a straight face so even Coope wasn't sure if this was a case of the judge's whimsical sense of humour.  
  
John Deed had other matters on his mind as he assumed the rich red robes and wig of his profession. It was not that he was a snob about these matters, just that he had the same sense of ritual and performance as a Shakespearean actor did at the Globe. It would have cheapened the occasion to have dressed otherwise and in this, John Deed was steeped in tradition which he trusted more than this modern age however liberal his political inclinations were.  
  
He made his way with his measured tread out onto his own stage, the judge's throne upon which he sat on high, overseeing the characters in a play that would determine the fate of two individuals in what promised to be a complicated case. He looked down on the severely robed figures of the chief protagonists, the slim shape of Jo Mills in more formal attire than when he had last seen her and the portly shape of Brian Cantwell. There was this moment of silent anticipation in the court before John Deed's sonorous tones let the play commence. 


	9. Part Nine

Part Nine   
  
Once the jury had been sworn in and the charges read out to the defendents, Jo rose from the prosecution bench and turned to face the jury.   
  
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I will present before you a catalogue of evidence against the defendents which will prove their involvement in the explosion and hostage incident which took place at Larkhall prison last year. I will prove to you beyond all reasonable doubt that Ritchie Atkins and Tracy Pilkinton, also known as Snowball Merriman, conspired to commit the act of arsen, which resulted in the death of one inmate, sharon Wiley. I will also prove to you that the defendent Ritchie Atkins planted a gun on a wing governor of Larkhall prison, a miss Karen Betts, and that the defendent Tracy Pilkinton used this gun to take Karen Betts hostage in order to achieve her escape from custody, and that on escape she further used this firearm to cause the act of greavous bodily harm to her co-defendent, ritchie Atkins. Ladies and gentlemen, this case is an extremely complex one, and you will be asked to take in an enormous amount of facts and to decide, on your analysis of these facts, whether the defendents before you are guilty or not guilty. to take at first glannce the defendent Tracy Pilkinton. She was first brought in to Larkhall prison on a drugs charge. It can be anyone's personal opinion whether or not this crime was committed in order to obtain a place at Larkhall. On entering the prison, this woman befriended one of the prison officers, one James Fenner, and used her influence on him in order to procure herself a job in the prison library, and to enable herself to be given the privilege of receiving interlibrary loans from an outside source. Evidence will be presented to you which will show that the books which were received as part of her interlibrary loans, contained, in their spines no less, a quantity of plastic explosives. Tracy Pilkinton had continuous and on occasions solitary access to the prison library, enabling her to create and plant the bomb which has been proved to be the direct cause of the fire which took place at Larkhall prison in June 2002. As a result of this fire, one inmate, Sharon Wiley, was killed. It will be your task to decide whether or not this death makes Tracy Pilkinton guilty of the charge of man slaughter. Following this explosion, Tracy Pilkinton was kept in segregation, during which time she somehow obtained the posession of the firearm. An investigation took place at Larkhall prison, though it has never been established how the gun was returned to her. On her release from segregation, Tracy pilkinton was overheard making a phone call, quite obviously contacting her co-defendent, Ritchie Atkins. Subsequent to this phone call, Tracy Pilkinton took the wing governor, Miss Karen Betts, hostage. At gun point, she forced Karen Betts to leave the prison, and to drive to a rendez-vous with Ritchie Atkins. During the subsequent struggle, Tracy Pilkinton shot Ritchie Atkins, causing him to lose all power in his legs. To summarise the charges against the other defendent, Ritchie Atkins, it simply remains to say that it will be proved beyond all reasonable doubt that it was he who planted the explosives inside the spines of the books which were sent to Larkhall prison as a part of the interlibrary loan scheme. Evidence will also be brought before you to show that it was Ritchie Atkins who had unlawful posession of the firearm which he then planted in the handbag of the wing governor Miss Karen Betts. It will also be proved to you during the course of this trial, that the defendent, Ritchie Atkins, persistently and continuously aided and abetted Tracy Pilkinton in her various endeavours to escape custody from Larkhall prison. Ladies and gentelemen, throughout this trial, you will be introduced to a man and a woman who have maintained a total disregard for not only the damage they have caused, but for the death of Sharon Wiley. I will bring before you eight witnesses, one of them the governor of Larkhall prison and one of them the prison chaplin, who will testify to the unequivocal guilt of the two defendents before you. You will hear from three women who were fellow inmates of Tracy Pilkinton, women who were either taken in by this woman, or who had their own suspicions and who could not give voice to their concerns. You will discover just how clever this woman is and that her vocation as an actress put her in very good stead for the guise of innocent bystander. I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to listen to the evidence I will place before you, and to find the defendents guilty of the crimes with which they are charged."   
  
As Jo moved back to the prosecution bench, in the public gallery, Cassie turned to Roisin and said,   
  
"Jesus, we should have employed her for our defence."   
  
"I just hope she can keep it up," Said Roisin. "Someone's got to make her," She gestured at where Snowball was handcuffed to two police officers in the dock, "pay for Shaz's death. That's what matters now, not what happened to us and to everyone else, just Shaz's death. She snuffed out that young life, and she has to be made to pay." 


	10. Part Ten

Part Ten   
  
Brian Cantwell could remember that the one thing that persuaded him, as a well paid top silk, to take on the defence of Tracy Pilkinton and Ritchie Atkins, was the evidence of the £50 grand that would cover his fees. Otherwise, they made an initially unprepossessing pair of dubious characters with more surface charm than substance. The whole business, as described to him, was a confused tangle that it would take an exceptionally astute barrister to convince the average jury of 12 people plucked from their ordinary lives to make head or tail of the business far less convict . On the whole he thought he'd take this one on. Of the two witnesses, Ritchie Atkins came over to him as a lightweight male gigolo type and would have to be well coached in his lines. He then carefully considered Tracy Pilkinton as a credible witness and that gave him more hope. The woman was a natural actress and totally convinced of her lines and this would hold up well in court. She was his ace in the pack, his highest card to play. He had noticed, of course, Tracy Pilkinton's exceptionally short dress which was obviously low cut at the front though that, in no way, influenced his professional judgement, nor the seductive tones of her American accent.  
  
Brian Cantwell listened to Jo's opening statement with outward languid unconcern but with keen interest.  
  
"Gentlemen..and ladies …of the jury," he commenced in lower key than his usual booming voice, always stumbling over the introduction in these deplorably PC conscious times." You have indeed before you a most complicated set of circumstances to unravel in your minds. In defence of the accused, Miss Tracy Pilkinton and Ritchie Atkins, I do not need to prove that some other person, or persons in combination, conspired to execute the act of arson that led to the unfortunate death of one Sharon Wiley." Here Brian Cantwell's voice dropped to the respectful tones of not wishing ill of the dead, however anonymous that person was." The case of the defence is that the accused did not perform the acts. I shall call no other witnesses than the accused for the very good reason that the witnesses called for the prosecution comprise the characters that had the most interactions with the accused. I shall, however, seek to establish that the witnesses comprise a somewhat ill assorted collection of people, all with different private agendas and with something to hide and their sheer numbers need not altogether add to the strength of the case for the prosecution. I shall also be demonstrating that one of the accused, Tracy Pilkinton, in the short period of time between admission to Larkhall and the explosion in question was entrusted with the highest level of prisoner privileges in comparison with other prisoners on the wing and will seek to establish the basis of the authority for these privileges especially as the witnesses for the prosecution includes the entire chain of command in G wing that is responsible for Tracy Pilkinton's sentence plan It will be part of the defence to rigorously test the so called evidence put forward by my learned friend and to winnow out what is hearsay or conjectural evidence and to demonstrate that what is left does not amount to a case proven beyond all reasonable doubt against the accused, Tracy Pilkinton. Turning to the other defendant, Ritchie Atkins, I shall seek to show that his contact with Larkhall prison was purely minimal as an occasional visitor to his mother, Yvonne Atkins, curiously speaking one of the witnesses for the prosecution and that he could not possibly be implicated in the arson and unfortunate death of Shaz Wiley. Otherwise, my defence of the accused will arise as evidence is given by the witnesses for the prosecution."   
  
Jo Mills was a shade surprised by Brian Cantwell's comparative lack of bombast until she reflected on the fact that he had carefully omitted references to the weaker side of his case, the forced abduction of Karen Betts at gunpoint and the shooting of Ritchie Atkins. A defence of this charge could very easily show in open court that the bullet was really intended for Karen Betts. This was akin to jolting a precariously perched frying pan full of hot fat into the burning fire, She made a careful note of this point for later on.  
  
"………..and Snowball Nobbing Merriman really is a saint. It's just that I need glasses so I can see the halo round her neck." Cassie swore contemptuously under her breath. 


	11. Part Eleven

Part Eleven   
  
Yvonne hardly ate a thing when her and Karen went to meet Cassie, Roisin and Lauren in the canteen. Fenner followed them but as soon as he saw who was there, he said,   
  
"Jesus! Not the dyke duo out on a pardon?"   
  
"Nice to see you too, Fenner," Was Cassie's equally uncivil reply. He simply glared at the five of them en masse and moved to go somewhere else. Only those not directly involved in the trial were able to eat. Both Karen's and Yvonne's nerves were strung as taut as possible. Yvonne because she kept going over and over the things the defence barrister might ask her, and Karen because she been forced to spend the last three hours in Fenner's company and would be doing the same this afternoon.   
  
"Sod this," Said Yvonne after a while. "I'm going outside for a fag." Karen decided to join her and they stood leaning against the wall, feeling like errant adolescents sneaking out for a secret smoke behind the bike shed. Yvonne suddenly asked,   
  
"How the hell did it all come to this?" Karen took a deep drag and asked,   
  
"How do you mean?"   
  
"I mean, did he do all this and help her to do everything she did because I was such a crap mother?"   
  
"Yvonne, we've had this conversation before. We've both made huge mistakes as mothers, but that gives neither of our sons the excuse to do anything they've either done or might do in the future. I've got absolutely no idea what Ross might end up doing now he hasn't got college to keep him on the straight and narrow."   
  
"I stood there and watched while Charlie threatened to nail him to the warehouse floor!" Said Yvonne, as if only just realising her part in that whole nightmare.   
  
"Oh and what exactly were you supposed to do?" Asked Karen. "Because though you'll hate me for saying it, not even you could have been expected to disagree with Charlie Atkins and still be living to tell the tale."   
  
"I really don't want to go in there this afternoon," Yvonne continued. "I don't want to have to look in to his eyes and see everything I've done wrong over the years." Karen ditched her cigarette and put her arms round Yvonne and gave her a tight squeeze.   
  
"One day," She said her face very close to Yvonne's, "I'll tell you the story of one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made, a mistake that almost cost me my sanity." They stood there in companionable silence, simply taking strength from each other's proximity, until Jo Mills appeared. At first she didn't like to disturb them. They looked so right, so complete that the sight of them tugged at something deep inside her. But time was moving on and justice would wait for no man, or woman come to that.   
  
"Yvonne," She said gently. "It's time to go in." Yvonne found herself not wanting to relinquish her hold on Karen, not wanting to leave this safe haven of brief tranquillity.   
  
"You'll be fine," Karen said giving her a last squeeze. As Yvonne moved with Jo towards the inside of the court, Karen called out to Jo,   
  
"Look after her." Jo turned and smiled.   
  
"I'll do my best," She replied.   
  
When Yvonne took the bible in her right hand and intoned the oath, she wondered just what she was doing here, about to testify against one of her own.   
  
"Mrs. Atkins," Jo began. "Please would you tell the court about the two visits you received from your son, Ritchie Atkins, at the end of May and the beginning of June last year?" Yvonne took a deep breath.   
  
"Some time in the middle of May, Ritchie sent me a letter, saying that he wanted to see me and asking me to send him a visiting order. This was quite a surprise, because I hadn't spoken to him for over four years."   
  
"And why was that?" Asked Jo gently.   
  
"He had a row with his dad."   
  
"I doubt the godfather of the east London version of the Mafia would be in favour of just a simple row," Muttered Brian Cantwell from the defence bench. Jo was furious. She wasn't two minutes in to Yvonne's evidence and Cantwell had already started.   
  
"My Lord," She said approaching the Judge's bench. "such a remark from the defence barrister is surely prejudicial." John was inclined to agree with Brian Cantwell, but he couldn't let his remark go unnoticed.   
  
"I agree Mrs. Mills," He said calmly. "The jury will disregard Mr. Cantwell's remark, and you, Mr. Cantwell, will refrain from making such remarks." Jo returned to stand in front of Yvonne.   
  
"How were things between you and your son when he visited you?"   
  
"He wanted to make up for lost time. He said he'd missed me. He reminded me that I used to call him my little angel when he was a child."   
  
"And when did he first ask you for money?"   
  
"On his second visit. He pointed out that his sister was sitting pretty at home with decent cars in the drive standing idle. He said he needed some money to set up an upmarket taxi business."   
  
"And you believed him?"   
  
"At the time, I had no reason not to. He sounded so plausible." Yvonne refused to let herself look over at the two people who had so successfully conned her out of fifty grand, and worst of all, her pride and self-esteem. "So, I told him I'd fix it with his sister, Lauren, to release fifty grand from the business."   
  
"And during this time, Tracy Pilkinton, known to you as Snowball Merriman, had entered Larkhall. What was your immediate impression of her?"   
  
"She was a trashy American movie star who we later found out had a line in porn films. She was given a cell on enhanced, without any real reason, probably because the PO's thought of her as a minor celebrity. She got very pally with her personal officer, Jim Fenner. She hadn't been in five minutes when she got made up to a red band and given a job in the library."   
  
"And when was it you received the bouquet of flowers from your son?"   
  
"Not long before the open day." Jo walked to the evidence bench and picked up something in a clear, sealed evidence bag. Holding it up in front of Yvonne she said,   
  
"And is this the card you received with the flowers?"   
  
"Yes, but when I received it, only the words at the top were on it."   
  
"Please could you be more specific?" Prompted Jo.   
  
"Only the words, "I love you mum", were on the card when I got the flowers."   
  
"And could you read the rest of the words on the card, for the benefit of the jury."   
  
"don't place your bets till the rod's in K's bag."   
  
"And these words definitely weren't on the card the last time you saw it?"   
  
"No." Returning the card to the evidence bench, Jo returned to the attack.   
  
"If you might cast your mind back to June the fifteenth of last year, could you describe to the jury, the substance of the phone call you exchanged with your son in the prison Chaplain's office."   
  
"I was in there with one of the visitors, Ajit Kahn. The phone rang, and when Ajit Kahn answered it, it was Ritchie. He was asking for Snowball Merriman."   
  
"Can I just make it clear to the jury that before this phone call, you had no knowledge whatsoever that your son was in any way acquainted with Snowball Merriman."   
  
"None at all. I had no idea that he knew her. When he figured out it wasn't Snowball on the phone, he ended the call. I'd heard his voice only too clearly. I did 1471 to get the number, it was Ritchie's mobile number. When I rang it, he answered the phone with the word Snowball. He was expecting it to be her."   
  
"And how did this make you feel?"   
  
"Bleedin angry," Answered Yvonne without a second thought. "It all began to fit in to place. Ritchie hadn't contacted me because he wanted to put the past behind us, he just wanted to get his hands on fifty grand, which knowing my luck is probably paying for his defence." Even John winced at the thought of this. Brian Cantwell began to look a little uncomfortable.   
  
"Did the phone call from your son make you wonder what Snowball was up to?" Asked Jo.   
  
"I guessed she was probably trying to escape, to meet up with Ritchie and go abroad with my money. Oh he was clever," She said, finally making herself look over at the dock, where Snowball sat cuffed to Di Barker on one side, and Ritchie sat in his wheelchair, cuffed to a male officer with officers in between them. "But he wasn't quite clever enough," Yvonne finished, giving Ritchie the kind of stare that let him know she'd won.   
  
"I have no more questions my Lord," Said Jo, dreading what was coming from Cantwell.   
  
Cantwell moved forward with too much of a spring in his step for Jo's liking.   
  
"Mrs. Atkins," He began. "Exactly why were you in the prison chaplain's office with Ajit Kahn?" For once, John found himself wholeheartedly agreeing with Brian Cantwell, though he didn't think Jo would see it that way.   
  
"Is that really relevant?" Asked Yvonne, saying the words Jo was about to utter.   
  
"I think you should allow me to decide that," Quipped Cantwell, and when Yvonne wasn't forthcoming, he said,   
  
"Mrs. Atkins, I must ask you to answer my question. Why were you alone, in a deserted office with one of the visitors for the open day." Yvonne was swiftly trying to think of an excuse that sounded vaguely authentic, but her seemingly endless supply of smart comments had deserted her.   
  
"You must answer the question," Put in John, who definitely wanted to know the answer to this one, if only to satisfy his curiosity. Knowing she couldn't avoid it, Yvonne turned to face the judge and locked eyes with him.   
  
"We were shagging," She said, as if they were two friends out for a drink, not judge and witness facing each other across a crowded courtroom. It seemed that almost everyone was trying to avoid breaking the silence. Everyone that is, except Cassie. Her comment of   
  
"Typical," sent most of the public gallery in to fits of half smothered laughter. Giving Yvonne a little wink, John simply answered,   
  
"I see." Cantwell, feeling thoroughly as if his limelight had been unceremoniously stolen, returned to his cross-examination.   
  
"And will Ajit Kahn confirm your story?"   
  
"He'll be hard put not to," Said Yvonne giving Cantwell a little smirk.   
  
"Now that we have that piece of scurrilous gossip cleared up," Continued Cantwell, "Are you absolutely sure it was your son who was attempting to contact Snowball Merriman?" Yvonne looked at him in disgust.   
  
"Of course I'm sure it was Ritchie. I am his mother for god's sake. I'd know that voice anywhere, full of charm, just like his father's."   
  
"I'm not so sure you would know your son's voice anywhere, as you put it," Went on Cantwell, silkily. "You were estranged from him for over four years, were you not."   
  
"No mother forgets her son's voice, no matter how long they don't speak," replied Yvonne.   
  
"And just why were you so quick and eager to hand over fifty thousand pounds, to a son you hadn't seen for such a long time. Was it not perhaps because you felt guilty? Guilty for the way you and your husband had treated him?" Cursing him to hell and back, yet knowing he was right, Yvonne said,   
  
"Are you going in for a plea of diminished responsibility or what. The reason I chose to give him fifty grand, has absolutely nothing to do with why he chose to help that murdering cow!" At the hint of verbal support from the public gallery, John cleared his throat.   
  
"Mrs. Atkins, might I remind you that you are in court." Cantwell moved in again, but this time for the slaughter.   
  
"You can hardly call yourself a good role model, can you. A mother who allows her son to be threatened, with being nailed to the warehouse floor, among other things? No wonder you felt guilty, and well you might. Is it really any wonder that your son found it so easy to become ensnared in such a disastrous scheme for revenge?" Jo was about to move forward to launch in to her long list of objections, but Yvonne got there before her.   
  
"How dare you," She said, all the anger and hurt clearly showing in her face. "Don't even think about laying the responsibility for Ritchie becoming involved with that evil tart at my door. He chose to do everything he's ever done, including screwing me out of fifty grand and trying to fit up Karen Betts for the bomb." Cantwell changed tack to try and fluster her.   
  
"And how do we know that it wasn't you who wrote the extra words on that card?"   
  
"Because I bleedin said so," Shouted Yvonne, losing any hint of decorum she might have had.   
  
"And just how trust worthy is the word of an Atkins?" Cantwell said.   
  
"You should know," Came back Yvonne. "After all, you're defending one." There was utter silence when she said this. As if going for damage limitation, Brian Cantwell moved back to the defence bench.   
  
"No more questions, Mr. Cantwell?" Asked Deed calmly.   
  
"No, My lord," Came Cantwell's subdued reply.   
  
John concluded the afternoon's proceedings by saying,   
  
"Court is adjourned till ten tomorrow morning."   
  
Yvonne's anger had dissipated by the time she left the courtroom. Jo caught up with her outside.   
  
"I'm sorry about that," Jo said.   
  
"Not your fault," Replied Yvonne matter-of-factly. "It ain't your fault that Ritchie's barrister's a wanker of the highest order. He didn't sound like he was trying to defend Snowball all that much though."   
  
"I think he might be going for damage limitation," Said Jo. "Let's face it, Ritchie is looking at a far shorter sentence, if he's convicted, and Ritchie also probably has the right contacts to make Brian Cantwell afraid of him if he doesn't get the right result."   
  
"You're on the ball," Said Yvonne, which was probably the best complement Jo had ever had from someone like Yvonne Atkins. "You want to be careful of him, though," She went on. "don't forget I probably know most of the other witnesses better than you do. He'll make mincemeat of Grayling, not that he doesn't deserve it, but it might not do much for your case."   
  
"I'll bare it in mind," Said Jo entirely grateful for a warning of this kind. Then catching sight of John, Jo excused herself from Yvonne and moved towards him with the speed and aim of a cat following its prey.   
  
"How could you," Was her opening rejoinder. John looked at her slightly surprised.   
  
"How could I what?" He said to her.   
  
"You just let Cantwell tare Yvonne Atkins to shreds. That wasn't on, John, and you know it."   
  
"For a start," He said, his own anger beginning to rise. "It looked to me like she was doing perfectly well on her own, and second, you are completely out of order approaching me like this."   
  
"Oh, when should I approach you, in bed?"   
  
"There are worse places," He said with a little smile.   
  
"this is no joke, John," She said, clearly still riled.   
  
"Jo, listen. It hasn't damaged your evidence, and Yvonne Atkins needs no looking after from me. She's quite capable of fighting her own battles."   
  
"That's hardly the point," Said Jo, beginning to calm down.   
  
"She managed to ruffle Cantwell's feathers and question his judgement in acting for their defence in the process. That isn't going to make either him or his clients look good in the eyes of the jury. She did you a favour, Jo. Stop worrying."   
  
Having heard most of Jo's side of this argument, as it had been given in a fairly loud voice, Yvonne grinned. So, the judge and the prosecuting barrister had more in common than their profession did they. She filed it away as a little fact to be used later if it should ever come in handy. Moving towards where Cassie, Roisin, Lauren and Karen were waiting for her, Yvonne almost stopped in her tracks when she saw Karen's face. She was extremely pale and looked like a scared rabbit about to flee at the slightest provocation. Lauren came forward to hug her.   
  
"Mum, you did brilliantly. Really gave that barrister what for." Yvonne gave her daughter a quick squeeze and looked at Karen. Disentangling herself from Lauren, she moved towards her.   
  
"Are you all right?" She asked Karen.   
  
"No," Was Karen's only reply. "I need to get out of here. I just wanted to know how you got on."   
  
"I had a bit of a fight with the defence barrister, and I think I made Jo Mills feel a bit superfluous, but yeah, not too bad. You look terrible, what's happened?"   
  
"Nothing," Karen said quietly.   
  
"And I'm a catholic priest," Replied Yvonne succinctly.   
  
"Really," Said Karen, "I just need to get out of here and have a large drink." Seeing it would be pointless to press the issue, Yvonne simply said,   
  
"Well, if you feel like a chat later, I'm in all evening."   
  
"I might take you up on that," Said Karen, knowing without doubt that she had too. She had to tell Yvonne about everything now. Come hell or high water, Fenner had made that crystal clear. 


	12. Part Twelve

Part Twelve   
  
Karen had always thought she could handle any situation but, as she watched Yvonne head out to the courtroom to testify, she suddenly felt incredibly vulnerable as the one human being that she felt she could rely on was temporarily away from her side and she was going to be stuck in the same room with Jim bloody Fenner. If there was one thing she was sure of, he could be totally relied on to be utterly unreliable and totally dishonest. Yet he was as important in the trial as anyone and she felt she had to restrain herself from lashing out at his innuendoes and sour jibes. Fennner, selfish as he was, could not begin to comprehend Karen's ingrained sense of the larger picture.  
  
"You and Atkins, eh. Would never have guessed it." Fenner leered at her."What's with you women governors at Larkhall that you go moist at the sight of a cold blooded criminal?"  
  
Karen lit a cigarette without answering and took in puffs of nicotine deep down into her lungs. One day she'll cut the cigarettes down and go on a health kick but the time right now most certainly was not right.  
  
"If you must know, Jim, I was giving Yvonne a bit of comfort before she goes up against the defence barrister. She's going to have a hard time of it what with facing her own son in the dock and testifying against him. If you've done your homework, you'll have figured that one out."  
  
"So it was all innocent, like Stewart and Wade were." leered Fenner.  
  
"You keep bringing up that old chestnut" sighed Karen wearily."Leave it out won't you. In any case you'll have a few tough questions to face when you get asked about the favours you did for Merriman, like Shell Dockley before her. Seems as if you need to watch your own back before stabbing other people in theirs."  
  
Fenner's face turned red with anger especially as his favourite phrase was used against him. That dangerous glitter made his eyes burn and his mouth set tight and thin lipped. That, indeed was what worried him. He wanted to see that bitch Merriman go down for making a fool of him and Atkins for being that gangster's moll's son and for shagging Karen when by rights she was still his. It was all an unfortunate misunderstanding which had got out of control. The fact that she could even think of going to the police really got to him and hurt him. He also had that maddening feeling that the woman he was used to smooching up and keeping sweet was dangerously out of hand. She had wanted to see him behind bars for that unfortunate incident at his bedsit even though she didn't go ahead with it. No woman would ever get the better of him as far as he was concerned.  
  
"Now listen to me, bitch." Fenner snarled though keeping his tones low."You better get into your head that in this trial we work as a team, me and you like it should be not you and Atkins. If we get our stories right we can nail the pair of them, Merriman and Ritchie Atkins, so tight that the nick they go to might as well as throw away the key." He hurled the words into Karen's face from inches away which brought back horrible memories of that other night months ago which she had done her best to forget. But there she was, trapped inside a bare interview room in an ancient court building where the world went on outside, even in open court. The silence that surrounded them might as well have taken them miles from any human contact instead of yards. Karen shrank back in horror from Fenner because he had touched a nerve that hit almost the only vulnerable spot that she had.  
  
"You are going to go into court and you are going to testify that, as wing Governor you authorised Merriman's prison duty in the library. I told you that she had a collection of books in her room about movie stars and had a real interest in books. I was the personal officer, you were Wing Governor. We stand together on this one. This way that bastard isn't going to take us both to the cleaners."  
  
"Us," Karen asked in total derision. More like you."  
  
"Because if you don't play ball with me, a few things just might come out in court that you, Karen 'politically correct' Betts wouldn't like the defence barrister to hear." He gave an evil leer and the dimly lit room threw upward shading shadows on his face as if in some sinister horror film. He paused a bit to let Karen sweat and to wonder what he would say next. The naked exercise of power of Fenner over another vulnerable human being was something that he most enjoyed feeling.  
  
"It all depends if those high and mighty people in their gowns and wigs believe you. If they don't believe you, you're nothing. Let's see, it might come out how generous you are with your favours to men, first me, then Waddle, then me again and then, wait a minute, to the very man who is sitting in the dock. Wouldn't look very good to the jury."  
  
"I'm not on trial, you bastard. There's a perfectly good explanation for everything I did.  
  
Not that a bastard like you would know it. You, Jim Fenner, who'll screw around with any woman with a short enough skirt." Karen fired back at him though the note of desperation in her tone was not lost on Fenner.  
  
"And then there's the matter of the so called sexual assault on you. Not very convincing when you back down at the first sign that you'll have to swear an oath in court…….just like you're going to have to do right now."   
  
The nightmare of the past few months was cruelly dragged back for her to relive in all it's horror, not to just remember. Karen closed her eyes to shut out the sight of Fenner's face.  
  
Suddenly, there was a shuffling sound and banging doors, as Yvonne's testimony was complete. In a real fever of desperation, her mind grabbed at the vision of Yvonne's face and that she would be out of this psychologically bolted and barred room. She wanted her freedom desperately and she ran blindly for the exit and out into the cooler air of the spacious court building. She felt clammy with fear and wanted desperately to be amongst those who believed in her.  
  
There stood Cassie well dressed in her blue trouser suit chatting to Roisin whose quick smile and physical closeness expressed all the love and light between the two of them. And Lauren, whom she had seen from time to time as a surly disrespectful visitor, cast her eyes questioningly on her with that look of concern that was so Yvonne.Her feelings were written all over her face but this time, the three women, two of whom she'd locked up for a living, were never so welcome.  
  
"You'll think on what I've said, Karen." Fenner murmured. The relative light of the court transformed him into just another man in anonymous prison uniform who slunk for the exit. With a huge sigh of relief, Karen spotted Yvonne who was last in the steady stream of people funnelling out of the court chamber. She couldn't wait to get out of the court building.   
  
In the melee of people in the high domed court foyer, Brian Cantwell pushed forwards in a self important way furious about being outsmarted. He was headed for his room in chambers where he could down a generous amount of the bottle of port and in his dreams, fantasise that he was still the red-hot barrister of his ambitions and dreams. Somehow, half drunk, things looked a lot better. It was accepted by his wife whose thoughts were occupied by the latest drama at the Women's Institute that his career demanded that he socialise with his colleagues in chambers till late hours and this was very convenient to her as the man could never keep up with the subtleties of who was whose best friend. He was always a year behind, poor thing. Men from her experience were like that and never understood the little pecking orders which her mind was attuned to. It gave her something to do in her day besides planning the latest Bring and Buy. 


	13. Part Thirteen

Part Thirteen   
  
Lauren was watching Eastenders when the doorbell rang later that evening. As can happen so often in August, the rain had suddenly appeared, transforming what had been a pleasant sunny day in to a torrential downpour. On opening the front door, she was greeted by the sight of a thoroughly drenched Karen. Moving in to the hall, Karen shook her wet hair out of her face.   
  
"You look like a drowned rat," Said Lauren beginning to laugh.   
  
"Yes, you wouldn't think it'd been sunny this morning. Is Yvonne in?"   
  
"Sure." Lauren led Karen towards a carpeted passage that led off the hall. "She's probably listening to some of that country crap she calls music, all guitars and South American drawl." Karen followed Lauren passed a couple of closed doors, to one at the end, which led in to what Yvonne liked to think of as her bit of personal space. In dimensions it was very similar to the lounge at the other end of the house where Lauren had been watching television. An enormous sofa full of cushions faced the large fireplace, with an equally cavernous armchair to one side. Karen also took in a stereo, which was currently playing something just as Lauren had described. There was a bookcase, which looked to be stocked with paperbacks ranging from trashy to crime, and a large desk in the corner where Yvonne was sitting, simultaneously sorting through bills and e-mails on a small computer.   
  
"Mum," Lauren broke in to Yvonne's concentration. "Someone to see you." Yvonne looked up and on seeing Karen, said,   
  
"Jesus, did you take a dip in the pool on the way here?" Karen smiled.   
  
"It's throwing it down. Are you busy?"   
  
"Nothing that can't wait," Said Yvonne closing down the computer. Lauren had disappeared back to Eastenders. Trigger, who had been sprawled in his favourite place under the window, ambled over to Karen and leaned his head against her thigh. "Bloody useless guard dog, he is," Said Yvonne grinning. "Didn't even hear the doorbell. He's getting lazy in his old age." Karen ran her hand over his head.   
  
"How old is he?" She asked.   
  
"Nearly twelve. He's doing well for an Alsatian." As well as being full of all Yvonne's favourite pastimes, this room was also liberally dotted with pictures of dogs. The one that had pride of place over the mantelpiece was an enlargement of a magnificent blue lurcher. Noticing Karen looking at this, Yvonne said,   
  
"You shouldn't have favourites, but she was mine. Would you like a drink?" She asked, gesturing to the bottle of Scotch on top of a small sideboard.   
  
"Please," Replied Karen. "I need some Dutch courage."   
  
"Is this about what happened today?" Yvonne asked, pouring a generous amount in to each glass.   
  
"In a way," Karen acquiesced. "There's something you need to know, about why I took up with Ritchie in the first place." Handing Karen her glass, Yvonne moved to one end of the sofa and Karen took the other.   
  
"What exactly did Fenner say to you?" Asked Yvonne lighting a cigarette.   
  
"He pointed out that I wouldn't want it coming out in court how much of a slag I am."   
  
"But you're not," Said Yvonne without a second thought.   
  
"That isn't quite what you said when you found out about me and Ritchie."   
  
"Well, I don't doubt that you'd have felt pretty similar if you discovered Ross was shagging someone ten years older than him. Besides, that was before I found out what a bastard Ritchie is."   
  
"Jim threatened that if I didn't cover up for him in court, try and remove any blame from him about Snowball getting undeserved access to the library and her interlibrary loans, he'd make the jury well aware of my liking for making fake allegations."   
  
"Again," Said Yvonne, "You don't."   
  
"That's not quite how Grayling and area see it, and it definitely isn't how the jury would see it."   
  
"So, what allegation did you make against Fenner that area couldn't do anything about?"   
  
"Yvonne, this isn't easy for me. Letting someone in isn't how I do things these days."   
  
"That's obvious," Said Yvonne gently, realising that whatever was coming was something Karen would never have spoken about if she hadn't been forced to.   
  
"I was raped," saying it like that had made it seem to Karen almost like she was talking about someone else. Saying, he raped me, would have been even more personal, which she knew was ridiculous.   
  
"Jesus. I always knew Fenner was an evil bastard but that just proves he's rotten to the core. When did it happen?"   
  
"A while before all of this started, not long after Crystal's baby was born."   
  
"What happened?" Karen looked ready to run.   
  
"You don't need to know specifics, Yvonne."   
  
"Maybe not, but you've clearly never talked about it."   
  
"When did you become so wise?" Asked Karen, making a feeble attempt at changing the subject.   
  
"It's something that place does to you," Yvonne replied. "You learn a lot about human nature, enough to know that if something as emotionally crippling as being raped is kept inside an never allowed to come out, it eats away at you till you go mad."   
  
"The one and only time I went through every detail of that night was an utter disaster."   
  
"I'm assuming that's when you told the police about it."   
  
"Yes, but as I didn't have any evidence, they refused to take it further."   
  
"Why not start from the beginning?" Asked Yvonne, sensing that Karen was avoiding this on purpose.   
  
"Perhaps because that's the hardest part." Yvonne got up and refilled their glasses. Karen looked like a deer caught in the headlights.   
  
"Do you remember that day when he stormed off the wing after you made that quip about him and Grayling?"   
  
"Vaguely," Said Yvonne, "But there were so many days like that."   
  
"I tracked him down to the B and B where he was staying, and I went to see him. I've never seen him so depressed. He kept pouring me drinks." Karen stopped, as if prevented by some impenetrable force. Yvonne reached out to take her hand, but there was such an aura of "keep off" resonating from Karen that she withdrew. Karen was staring in to the eyes of the lurcher in the painting. It seemed to provide her with an anchor, something to prevent her from looking in to Yvonne's face to see the scorn that she was sure must be there. She was a mixture of desperation to maintain the barriers she had so irrevocably erected after that night, and a craving to let go of the cords that were holding her senses so tort that they would surely snap. What Yvonne could feel in watching this woman whom she had come to look on as one of the dearest, closest friends she'd ever had, was the pain, anger and fear that were coming off Karen in waves. All Yvonne could do was watch. She had no place breaking in to Karen's torment. Allowing the walls to crumble, or building them even higher was Karen's choice, nobody else's. Eventually, Karen's far too brittle shell began to crack, not unlike an egg that has been left too long to boil.   
  
"I was so stupid," She said, with a strangled softness that only threatened a further loss of the reins.   
  
"Why?" Yvonne tentatively asked, almost feeling like she was breaking in on a personal viewing of the mind's uncremated remains.   
  
"I got in to bed with him," Karen replied, the tears beginning to slide almost regretfully down her face. "I actually got in to bloody bed with him. Do you have any idea how much I loathe myself for doing that?"   
  
"Tell me," Encouraged Yvonne gently.   
  
"If I hadn't done what I did, he wouldn't have assumed I was offering what I wasn't." Yvonne suddenly noticed an odd thing about Karen, crying made hardly any difference to her voice. Even though Karen's body was clearly fighting against the constriction of too many unshed tears, her voice had hardly altered, except to display the pain and self-loathing she so clearly felt. Also sensing that something to hold on too might not go amiss, Yvonne moved slowly forward, gently putting her arms around Karen. She gave Karen plenty of time to back away, but the presence of Yvonne's gentle arms and unthreatening body seemed to give Karen the permission she needed to bare her entire soul. Karen made very little sound as she cried. Her body simply shook in Yvonne's soothing embrace.   
  
"Sweetheart, listen to me," Yvonne cajoled. "What Fenner did to you wasn't your fault. So what if you ended up in bed with him. That doesn't give him the right to do what he did. You said no, and no means no. You just have to start believing that."   
  
"When you have no-one to publicly blame, it all becomes a bit internalised," Said a muffled voice from the region of Yvonne's shoulder. Karen couldn't believe she was doing this. She hadn't been this close to a woman since her mother was alive, and probably not even then if she was honest with herself. She'd known Yvonne as more than an inmate for about a year now, but never had they touched on anything so deep and soul destroying. Though if having your son do what Ritchie had done to Yvonne wasn't bad for the heart, Karen didn't know what was.   
  
"I'm sorry," Karen said softly. Yvonne raised Karen's face to meet hers, and looking at her with the famous Atkins stare, she said,   
  
"Let's get one thing straight, you have absolutely nothing to be sorry for. Do I make myself clear?" Karen gave her a watery smile.   
  
"It might take a bit of working on," she said, looking Yvonne straight in the eye for the first time that evening.   
  
"Trust me," Said Yvonne, "I intend to. You've got to start believing in the good things in life again."   
  
"And there we come back to one of the things in life that isn't good right now," Said Karen, leaning her head against Yvonne.   
  
"You mean Ritchie," It was a rhetorical question.   
  
"We've never really talked about men, have we?"   
  
"Apart from how useless most of them are, no," Said Yvonne matter-of-factly. "But then as you've been single since Ritchie, and I've been single since I got out, sex has never arisen as a general topic of conversation. Why?"   
  
"After Fenner," Karen began hesitantly, "That side of mine and Mark's relationship was a total disaster. Sleeping with someone who knows how weak and pathetic you are capable of being isn't good." Yvonne gently rubbed Karen's arm as if to give her strength. "Mark couldn't get passed the fact that I had willingly gone to see Fenner and got even remotely close to him. I think part of him despised me for that. The rest of him was all to aware that I probably wasn't enjoying anything we did."   
  
"And you insisted on sleeping with Mark to try and prove that what Fenner had done didn't matter."   
  
"Something like that. So, when Ritchie came along, I thought it was my one chance to put Mark, Fenner and the entire nightmare behind me. Ritchie didn't know anything about me. He didn't know what Fenner had done and he didn't have any idea what I was like normally, which meant he didn't know if I faked it or not." Yvonne gave Karen a little squeeze as if to demonstrate the pain she was feeling on Karen's behalf.   
  
"And did this amazing piece of philosophy work?"   
  
"Not so you'd notice," Karen replied. "It just made me feel more cheap than I already did."   
  
"Karen, you are not cheap, nor a slag, nor anything else you've attributed to yourself tonight." Yvonne had said this so vehemently that she hadn't realised that tears were beginning to run down her own face. She was only alerted to their presence when Karen lifted a hand and wiped away a tear with her finger.   
  
"Yvonne, please don't cry."   
  
"You are a very attractive, very talented woman with an enormous amount to offer anyone. You are worth far more than my useless shit of a son." They sat in companionable silence, with the gentle tones of Alison Krauss coming from the stereo, and the room only lit by candles. Yvonne always preferred the softer, more seductive lighting of candles to the glare of an electric source, even if it did have a dimmer switch. Once the tears had gone, neither of them felt inclined to let go of the other. They seemed to derive some strength from each other's proximity, which was certainly a new experience for both of them.   
  
"What are you going to do?" Asked Yvonne, eventually breaking the silence. Karen lifted her head from its place on Yvonne's shoulder and looked at her quizzically. "In court tomorrow," clarified Yvonne, "After what Fenner threatened this afternoon."   
  
"I don't know," Said Karen. "And I probably won't know till I'm on the stand."   
  
When Yvonne eventually let Karen out of the front door later that night, the rain had stopped and drops of water glistened on trees and flowers. Yvonne stood on the front door step and hugged Karen tightly to her.   
  
"You stay safe," She said, "Promise me."   
  
"I will if you will," Said Karen hugging her back. As she walked to her car, it dawned on Karen that Yvonne had used the words she would have used on a fellow inmate when she was in Larkhall. As she drove slowly towards home, she decided that this more than anything was what had cemented her friendship with Yvonne so irrevocably, perhaps even more so than how Yvonne had reacted to everything she had learnt that evening. Karen expected to feel awkward at how long they had stayed so close together, but she didn't. It was simply a mark of how much better they now knew each other, a sign that they really were equals. 


	14. Part Fourteen

Part Fourteen  
  
John Deed made his stately way from the court building to the chambers, musing on the day's court proceedings to date. He was aware that he had given way to that compulsive curiosity for little details that added to his outrageous reputation when he had pursued the question of Yvonne's motives for being closeted with Mr Ajit Khan. It was the mantra of 'sticking to the point' which had been chanted in educated Oxford accents from when he was first called to the bar that provoked that rebellious spirit within him to break out from time to time. He had been long trained in following the geometric patters of the law and admiring the austere sculpturework but put a social convention up before him and his taste veered sharply towards the surrealists.  
  
The only problem was that Jo Mills didn't see things the same way. He knew well that Jo's recent outburst of anger at him was merely the opening shot in a long cannonade if she had the time, space and privacy to let fly. Despite all this, he felt that, perhaps he had gone too far and that he had some making up to do on this occasion.   
  
Mrs Atkins took his fancy as being quite an attractive woman who gave a pretty good account of herself to that buffoon Cantwell and she had a definite twinkle in her eye and was very quick to tune in on male admiration. He feared that he may find that feeling not being reciprocated by her after letting Cantwell go on the attack without restraining him as he knew he could have done. The woman's nerve and steel sharp mind impressed him as her verbal swordthrust "After all, you're defending one" went through Cantwell's guard like lightning like a masterstroke. Cantwell, getting overconfident, had, for that fraction of a second, left that opening. From today's showing already, this trial was proving to be interesting and complex.  
  
John Deed parked his car outside the red bricked mews cottage but from time immemorial, was accustomed to take the rough side cinder path at the right hand side of the line of cottages, and turn first right into her garden at the back which shared the common access path to that row of cottages. Jo Mills had seen him coming and was waiting for him like an avenging angel, having predicted with faultless accuracy to within ten minutes as to when John Deed would arrive in his car. He had changed into his more modest garments of black trousers and open necked white shirt and braces, which was an affectation of his youth. This time, Jo was not her usual welcoming self as she shot out of the back door with a large empty wineglass in her hand.  
  
"You will be doubtless aware that I have been visited by Ian Rochester and Lawrence James and been subjected to the usual third degree." John Deed spoke in his emotionless tone just before Jo Mills could carry on where she had left off.  
  
"And…." Jo started.  
  
"They appealed to me most unethically to take up the unfortunate case of the American photographer whom Tracy Pilkinton stabbed to death. Have you heard of any rumours of Ian having any far-flung relations in Florida whose death I was instructed to avenge and any money he might inherit? Ian Rochester on a mission of mercy and appealing to my better nature does have the effect of making my stomach rather queasy."  
  
"Am I supposed to sympathise with you after what you let that Cantwell animal inflict on my witness or act as nurse for your ailments or both?" Jo Mills stormed at him.  
  
"Was I asking you to?" John Deed asked Jo Mills very rhetorically and unfairly as he knew very well that he had exactly that effect on her. "I always had a bit of a weakness for women in uniforms of all descriptions. I merely wanted to mention that the Guardians of the Nations Ethics have not failed to overlook the chance to favour me with their good advice."   
  
"That is not the point," Jo raged, wondering how she could let this impossible man run rings round her while she was more than capable of setting steel toothed logical man traps for male barristers and waiting for them to blunder on and for the jaws of the trap to snap shut on their ankles. But it was because John Deed is John Deed and because of their long standing on off affair, she realised ruefully in a slightly calmer frame of mind.  
  
"Why did you let Cantwell go in to the attack on my witness without one whisper from you. I demand an explanation." Jo eventually said when she had remembered her train of thought and with her left hand, flicking a curl of fair hair that had become dishevelled and hung down in front of her eye.  
  
"You did tell me, my dear, of my failings in assuming the role of judge, council for the defence and council for the prosecution all in one. I took heed of your advice but I may have overcompensated in my concern for you." John Deed replied sheepishly." But if you feel that I went too far, then………."  
  
Jo let out a wordless sound of total frustration and exasperation. The man was impossible.   
  
"I know you, John Deed. First you habitually cramp my style in court, totally and utterly and then, for once, you go to the totally opposite extreme just to drive me mad." Jo reached for her bag and fumbled feverishly round for a cigarette, clicked the lighter several times which refused to spark and threw both items down on the grass."let me tell you, John Deed if ever you……….." she started to say, wagging her right forefinger at him to ram home the point she was making.  
  
…………."I shall be forced to, forced to…….." Jo repeated her sentence an hour later.  
  
"What, my dear." A naked John Deed asked an equally naked and more dishevelled Jo Mills in the warmth and comfort of Jo's bed after they had made love and Jo rediscovered the reasons that brought her back to this impossible man. Nothing he had said or done tonight had changed her professional judgement, she supposed to herself.   
  
Jo slipped out of bed to find her black leather handbag which she had dropped, smashing her best makeup powder in the hurry to make their way to bed. She sighed. This wasn't the first time this had happened. The blank expression on John Deed's face did not deceive for one minute, Jo's not very brain taxing deduction that if John Deed had a preference, he could decide which sort of appearance he preferred Jo to make before him, right now or earlier today.  
  
"We can't keep meeting like this, John." Jo murmured, tracing a line along his left eyebrow.  
  
"You mean the spies are out. Ian Rochester will be poised up a flight of ladders with binoculars and long distance camera. Yes…….I can see him as a peeping Tom. You heard the other day what I told you of Rochester minor at the dear old school that he bores us about."   
  
Jo let out a laugh today, the first laugh she had had that day, found her lighter and cigarettes which she had retrieved from the garden and with mock modesty, made her way back to bed.   
  
"You will look after yourself in court in future. Damn it, you know what I mean, John." Jo replied with a muted touch of exasperation and real concern for the man. A little bit of her reacted the same way when, as a bright and observant child, she got to act as mother to her own father whose health she worried about at his coughing bout as he went out to work and the tiredness in his eyes.  
  
"I shall behave myself impeccably," John replied in crisp staccato tones appearing to emphasize the last word. In reality, she worried about the man more as he got a perverse thrill in flaunting his unorthodoxies before the increasingly Politically Correct and conformist Lord Chancellor's Department.  
  
Accordingly, she ran her fingers around his shoulder blades and gave way to the illicit thrill which had always added spice to their lovemaking as John moved over her.  
  
"At least Yvonne Atkins has someone to help her, Karen Betts." Mumbled Jo into John Deed's shoulder many hours later in the dim light. " Although in fact from seeing Karen Betts comfort her, I couldn't help wondering if it was more to it than a Wing Governor giving professional support to a prisoner before going onto the stand."  
  
"Rubbish," John Deed sleepily replied. "That's for the TV dramas."  
  
Like the normal professional relationship between Circuit Judge and Barrister, Jo smiled knowingly to herself. 


	15. Part Fifteen

Part Fifteen   
  
Yvonne arrived at the court earlier than necessary on Tuesday morning, having told Lauren there was something she wanted to do first, and to meet her there. She made her way to the witness room, praying that no-one would be there but him. Last night, Yvonne had shed tears over what Karen had suffered at the hands of Jim Bastard Fenner, but this morning Yvonne had woken in a boiling rage and with the resolve to make sure he never did anything of the kind again. Yvonne had no intention of doing Fenner any direct harm. For a start, she didn't think Karen would thank her for trying to fight a battle that wasn't her own, and second, not even for Karen was Yvonne prepared to consider another stretch inside. But Yvonne hadn't cornered the market in threats for nothing. She moved with the stealth of a cat down the corridor to the room where they'd all been incarcerated yesterday. With an excuse already formed on her lips, she silently pushed open the door.   
  
When Fenner turned and saw Yvonne standing in the doorway, he said,   
  
"What're you doing here, Atkins?" Yvonne didn't reply immediately. She slowly moved towards him, stalking him like a lioness ready to defend her mate. Seeing her menacing glare attempting to nail him to the spot, he stepped back from her. Yvonne kept advancing until she had him backed up against the wall. Standing as close to him as her revulsion would allow, she fixed him with the stare that had brought so many men to their knees. Noticing the beads of sweat on his forehead, Yvonne asked in a tone that was both gentle and threatening,   
  
"Are you scared, Fenner?" When he didn't answer, she added,   
  
"Because you sure as hell should be after what I learned about you last night."   
  
"Been crying rape, has she?" Yvonne caught him with a Karate chop to the throat, that had it been as hard as she would have liked, would have crushed his windpipe. But her wish wasn't to get herself a life sentence, merely to shut him up so she could talk uninterrupted.   
  
"Now, you listen to me, Fenner. I'm going to talk, and you're going to stand there like a good little boy and listen. I'm not going to ask you why you did what you did to Karen, because the obvious answer is that you've never been able to keep your dick in your trousers. You haven't learnt to realise when it just isn't wanted, have you Fenner. First, Dockley, then Rachel Hicks, then Helen Stewart, and now Karen."   
  
"Why, think you'll have better success with her, do you?" He croaked. Yvonne simply gave him a withering look, not giving his retort the time of day.   
  
"My problem is," Said Yvonne, almost conversationally. "How do I make sure you don't ever do that to her again. How do I make you realise once and for all that forcing that excuse for a dick inside another woman, and Karen in particular, isn't the way to go."   
  
"Why are you champion of her cause all of a sudden, Atkins?" Yvonne had had enough of being civil by this time. Grabbing hold of his tie, she forced the knot up as far as it would go, gradually cutting off his air supply.   
  
"Just get this in to your thick skull, Fenner. You lay one more finger on Karen Betts, and you'll be finding out what's on the bottom of the Thames. Do I make myself clear?" Watching for the brief nod of his head, Yvonne let go of Fenner and watched him sink to the floor as he got his breath back. Strolling nonchalantly to the door, she turned and as a parting shot, said over her shoulder,   
  
"It's as easy as clicking my fingers, Fenner. I could have you wiped off the face of the Earth in a matter of seconds. Don't you forget that."   
  
"You really think you're all powerful, don't you, Atkins."   
  
"Fenner. Unless you want to find out just how powerful I am these days, you'll go in to that court and tell the truth like a good little boy, because lies always catch up with us in the end, don't they."   
  
"You want to ask Karen Betts about telling the truth."   
  
"I mean it, Fenner. Keep your hands off Karen, and tell the jury the truth about your little dealings with Merriman, and I'll leave you alone. You even think of double-crossing me, and it'll be one of the last thoughts you'll have."   
  
When Karen walked in to the foyer of the Old Bailey a little while later, she saw Yvonne, sitting reading the morning's copy of The Guardian.   
  
"Anything interesting in there?" She asked, sitting down. Yvonne looked over the top of the paper at her and grinned.   
  
"Only how I pissed off the defense barrister yesterday." She handed the paper over to Karen. Emblazoned on the front page was the headline, Former Gangster's Moll Tangles With Defense QC. This was followed by a fairly accurate account of exactly how far Yvonne had gone in questioning the judgment of the defense council, Brian Cantwell. Karen laughed huskily.   
  
"Shame I didn't see that," She said, handing back the paper.   
  
"Had any more thoughts about this morning?" Asked Yvonne, returning them to the issue of Fenner's ultimatum of yesterday.   
  
"There isn't anything else I can do, is there," Said Karen. "I've got to tell the truth about his involvement with Merriman's sudden rise in status. Perjury is something I can certainly do without."   
  
"We'll all be there in the gallery, you know, and you don't know that Fenner would follow through with his threat."   
  
"Oh, he might, if he thought it was worth his while."   
  
"Well," Said Yvonne, keeping the hint of certainty from her voice, "He might realise which side his bread's buttered before it's too late."   
  
When Karen stood on the stand, and was asked to swear on the bible, she looked briefly up in to the public gallery where sat the four supporting figures of Yvonne, Lauren, Cassie and Roisin. Taking note of the hint of wariness in Karen's expression, Jo moved forward to begin her questioning.   
  
"Ms Betts. I would like you to begin, by describing to the court, your brief liaison with the defendant, Ritchie Atkins." Karen took a deep breath and began.   
  
"I first met Ritchie Atkins, when he came to visit his mother, in May of last year. I observed him across the visiting room and you could say my response to his attractiveness was immediate."   
  
"And you saw no problem in pursuing a relationship with Ritchie Atkins?"   
  
"Not at all. Just because his mother had been convicted of a criminal offence, didn't mean that Ritchie himself was of a similar persuasion." In the public gallery, Yvonne winced, though she knew this was the best way for Karen to explain it.   
  
"And did you do the sensible thing of informing your superiors of your relationship with Ritchie Atkins?"   
  
"Yes, at the first convenient opportunity."   
  
"And what was the reaction of your boss, Neil Grayling?"   
  
"He said, if you want me to slap your wrists for fancying a younger man, I won't do it. If you want me to tell you not to see an Atkins, I can't do it."   
  
"Those were his exact words?"   
  
"Yes. He made it clear that I wasn't jeopardising my professional integrity by having an affair with the son of one of the women I locked up."   
  
"And you saw Ritchie Atkins on how many occasions?"   
  
"Two. Once before I went on holiday, and once, the night before the fire."   
  
"And did you inform his mother of your relationship?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
"And what, would you say was her reaction?"   
  
"She wasn't exactly enthusiastic about it." Yvonne frowned to herself, remembering all the things she'd said to Karen on that day.   
  
"And when did you first become aware of the existence of the gun?"   
  
"It was discovered to be in my handbag on the day of the fire."   
  
"Who found it?"   
  
"Principle officer Jim Fenner."   
  
"And why did he think to look in your handbag?" Here it comes, thought Karen, knowing that Fenner would crucify her for this.   
  
"Jim Fenner had built up something of an alliance with one of the defendants, Snowball Merriman. he had made her up to a redband while I was on holiday." Jo held up a hand.   
  
"Could you please explain to the jury exactly what being made up to a redband means?"   
  
"A redband, or a trusted prisoner, is an inmate who is trusted in areas of the prison not usually inhabited by inmates. They are routinely given the jobs with the highest pay which they see as a privilege."   
  
"And is it usual for a prisoner, who has only been an inmate for less than a week, to be given such privileges?"   
  
"No, not at all."   
  
"Would you have sanctioned this rise in status for Snowball Merriman had you not been away on holiday at the time?"   
  
"Certainly not."   
  
"So, what extra privileges were sanctioned by principle officer Fenner?"   
  
"She was automatically given her own cell on enhanced and she was given the job of the library redband. This gave her almost sole access to the library and its contents. As part of this privilege, she was also given access to the interlibrary loan scheme, enabling her to have books sent in from outside sources."   
  
"And all this took place within her first week of residence at HMP Larkhall."   
  
"Yes." Brian Cantwell rose and moved forward to address the judge.   
  
"My lord, might I remind the prosecution that principle officer Fenner is neither on trial nor in court to confirm or deny these allegations?" Before John could reply, Jo asserted herself.   
  
"My Lord, I am simply attempting to make the jury aware of the cunning and sheer acting ability of the Defendant."   
  
"Please keep to the matter in hand, Mrs. Mills." Jo returned to Karen.   
  
"Ms Betts, please will you describe to the court, what Snowball Merriman did, in return for her status as an enhanced prisoner?"   
  
"She informed principle officer Fenner, that a break-out was to take place, and that Yvonne Atkins and Ritchie Atkins had conspired to plant the gun in my handbag, in order to bring suspicion on me."   
  
"What happened when Jim Fenner told you of this?"   
  
"He grabbed my handbag and rummaged through it till he found the gun." Jo moved to the evidence bench and retrieved a sealed evidence bag. Returning to stand in front of Karen, she asked,   
  
"Is this the gun that was found in your handbag, and which was later used to force you to drive Snowball Merriman to meet her co-defendant?" Karen recoiled from the sight of the gun, as if from a slap. Her reaction to seeing the gun again didn't go unnoticed by either Jo or John.   
  
"Yes," Said Karen, attempting to get her voice under control. "that's the gun."   
  
"And because I know the defense will ask you this," Said Jo, giving Cantwell a little smirk, "Are you absolutely sure that it was this gun that was used on both occasions?"   
  
"I'm as certain as I can be," Replied Karen, admiring Jo's tactics. "But then I'm not exactly au fait with the size and make of guns, but the circumstances in which I saw this one give me reason to believe that I wouldn't be likely to forget it." Well put, thought Jo. This one would have made a good barrister instead of working for the crumbling empire that represented the prison service.   
  
"You seem a trifle wary of the gun, Ms Betts."   
  
"Wouldn't you be if you'd had that thing rammed in to your back and been forced to drive that woman to meet her accomplice?" Karen said this with such vehemence that everyone, including the jury, were left in no doubt as to how scared Karen had been.   
  
"And now, would you tell the court about when the defendant, snowball Merriman, took you hostage, and forced you to drive her to a rendezvous with the other defendant, Ritchie Atkins."   
  
"All the inmates had been out for exercise. They'd all just come in from the yard, and I was walking back towards my office. I was accosted by Snowball Merriman. She pushed the barrel of the gun in to my back. She said, I've found the missing gun, Miss. I'm a civilian worker, and you're giving me a lift to the station. This was her ploy for getting passed the gatelodge."   
  
"It was this gun?"   
  
"Yes! For the last bloody time, it was this gun!"   
  
"Mrs. Mills, you've gone far enough with this line of questioning," John's voice reverberated around the court.   
  
"My Lord, I am simply trying to avoid Ms Betts being put through a similar barrage by the defense council."   
  
"I understand your plan of attack, Mrs. Mills, but your witness is clearly distressed and I insist that you not pursue this particular line of questioning any longer. Do I make myself clear?"   
  
"Crystal, My Lord. Ms Betts, what happened after you were accosted by the defendant, Snowball Merriman."   
  
"She forced me to tell the gate lodge that I was with one of the teachers from the education department. She made me walk to my car. When we got in the car, she grabbed my mobile and rang the other defendant, Ritchie Atkins."   
  
"My Lord, I have submitted the mobile phone records to show that this call took place, 3C in your bundle. Ms Betts, what did she say to Ritchie Atkins?"   
  
"She said, I got your old shag to give me a lift." Yvonne winced when she heard this.   
  
"And then what happened?" Asked Jo.   
  
"We arrived at her Rendezvous with Ritchie, and she forced me out of the car. She had the gun aimed at me all the time. She seemed to be on a high, getting a real kick out of having that much power over me. It excited her to be the one in control. She raised the gun to shoot me, and Ritchie got in her way. Much as I might loathe all the things he's done, he did save my life."   
  
"So, you actually saw Snowball Merriman shoot Ritchie Atkins?"   
  
"Yes. She shot him because he got in her way. If he hadn't, I'd probably be dead."   
  
"Thank you, Ms Betts, that will be all." Taking note of Karen's drained expression, and knowing she still had far worse to come, Deed announced,   
  
"Court is adjourned until two this afternoon."   
  
In the public gallery, Yvonne sat, slightly stunned. for a start, she'd never heard in quite so much depth, exactly what had happened that day. But second, Karen had totally avoided telling the court about Yvonne having clearly requested some sort of ambush for Ritchie and Snowball. She hadn't mentioned anything about Yvonne's involvement in that disaster. When Karen appeared, Yvonne walked over to her and said,   
  
"Why did you do it?" Karen looked at her slightly nonplussed.   
  
"Do what?"   
  
"Why didn't you tell the court about the three of you being shot at by my lot?"   
  
"What, and make things more complicated than they already are? Yvonne, I know why you arranged that little surprise, and if they knew about your involvement, no-one could guarantee they wouldn't put you back in Larkhall."   
  
"I owe you one," Said Yvonne, amazed at the change that had been wrought in Karen in the time Yvonne had known her.   
  
"No, you don't," Said Karen gently. "Seeing as I'm the reason why your son is confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, it's the least I could do. Okay?"   
  
"Yeah, thanks," Was all Yvonne could say. Then Cassie seemed to appear out of nowhere.   
  
"You look like you could do with a large drink," She said to Karen.   
  
"That's the best idea you've ever had," Replied Karen, the need for a drink and a cigarette seeming to turn her in to an instant junky. "I think I need refueling before that defense barrister sticks the knife in." 


	16. Part Sixteen

Part Sixteen   
  
Fenner seethed with secret rage and hatred for that Atkins bitch and that Betts cow. They're expecting him to jump when they say jump like any other dominant castrating bitch he'd met before. She clicks their fingers with those elegantly elongated painted nails, he is expected to be all meek and mild to take orders. Now that Atkins is out of Larkhall, she's twice as bad as when he could at least have the satisfaction of turning the key to the cell door and giving her the orders of the day.   
  
He saw the way they gathered together in the domed foyer of the court all cosy cosy, the glare that that Tyler dyke stabbed in his direction and the look of disapproval on Connor's face as if he were something dug up somewhere. No welcome from them, even though he's trying to do the same as them.   
  
If Fenner's old schoolmistress could see him now, one sharp eye would have told her that James Fenner was playing that "well, if I'm not invited to play their game, then I won't let them play mine either." Always got some grudge against some other boy and she often popped out to the back of the bike sheds to find him twisting another boy's arm behind his back while he yelled in pain and was getting obvious pleasure out of it. Till she had him after school writing out one hundred times. "I shall not bully other children" Forced against his will, the eight year old Fenner slouched at his desk, the only one there while that gimlet eye was unblinkingly watching every move. He learned to hide his rage behind an outward show of acquiescence, one lesson from school that he never forgot.  
  
"Just popping out for a packet of fags." Fenner's midpitched voice carried across the courtroom in a muffled way while the group of women thought they heard a voice of some kind, turned round but by that time he was away.  
  
Out in the fresh air of the street, Fenner swiftly spied a run down tobacconist and bought the cigarettes of his choice. His real purpose was to double back and look out the defence solicitor that he'd seen briefly earlier on. An evil smile creased his face, as he was sure that he had an interesting tale to tell.   
  
Karen put on a brave face as she took the stand in the afternoon and did her best to steady her nerves. She held onto the dock rail firmly and looked the defence solicitor in the eye as he took his place. Jo Mills was out of Karen's vision but, behind her professional mask, there was more than a hint of real concern, from one human being to another. She had not grown up as John Deed's pupil and on and off lover for nothing.  
  
"Miss Betts, "Brian Cantwell's harsh voice opened the attack,"You have given evidence this morning, have you not, that one of the defendants, Snowball Merriman, had been given a series of privileges within a week of her admission to your care, such as being given her own cell, and being appointed as librarian for the prison library service."   
  
"Yes, Sir, this is so."  
  
"And you also testified that all this took place in the week when you were on holiday.  
  
"Yes, Sir, this was the case."  
  
"And you testified that you would not have sanctioned the granting of these privileges if you had been present at the time when Snowball Merriman was admitted to prison."  
  
"Yes," Karen said evenly. She knew what was coming and thank God this man signalled his moves in advance.  
  
"So, if you thought that the privileges were unreasonable in any way, why did you not simply remove these privileges on your return as Mr Fenner's senior officer?"  
  
"Because………….I am guided to a certain extent by the opinion of the Personal Officer in all matters. I interviewed Snowball Merriman as part of her induction and I found that my initial impression of her was mixed. She came over as someone who was very much different from the run of the mill prisoner but with a strong interest in old Hollywood movie stars and her own book collection in her belongings. She passed herself off as an American actress although her file showed her as Tracy Pilkinton from Wigan. The fact that she passed herself off with a false identity is not so surprising in this star struck age."   
  
"You were asked a straight explanation of your decision, or non decision, Miss Betts." Brian Cantwell snarled."Can you come to the point?"  
  
"I was doing just that," Karen replied fighting to keep an even strain."Snowball Merriman had hardly started to serve her sentence at Larkhall. The appointment as library 'redband' was, at the very least, premature, in my opinion with no time for her progress to be assessed for her suitability. I am not in the habit of reversing the decisions of junior officers made in my absence unless I had absolute and clear evidence as to the unsuitability. I had no such evidence prior to the explosion. Just shows you that experienced officers of many years standing like Mr Fenner and myself are not immune from being deceived. As I know to my cost."  
  
Cassie and Roisin sat, in the front row of the spectator's gallery, open mouthed holding their hands willing strength in their thoughts to Karen as the battle unfolded. And this was the woman she had badmouthed as a jobsworth in a suit when she was desperate to see Roisin after she had been discharged from the Muppet Wing.  
  
Brian Cantwell paced round in a small circle letting a hush fall on the court adding tension to the proceedings before resuming his stance.  
  
"Do I understand it that you set great store by your professional integrity." He asked slowly, dragging out every syllable.  
  
"Always and at all times," Karen rushed in eagerly, wishing to set her stamp on the proceedings. Too eagerly, thought Jo Mills who had a sudden chill feeling run down her spine.  
  
"So when you made an allegation of rape against another prosecution witness to the trial, this was an instance of your high standards." replied Brian Cantwell softly yet clearly in the hush. "The rape allegation which you were so apparently certain of yet you withdrew of your own free will supposedly because you did not want your son Ross dragged into the proceedings.I understand that the alternative, of the Home office pressing charges never materialised. Perhaps you can explain this to the court, Miss Betts."  
  
Karen went white when, in a hideous moment of blinding clarity, she realised that she had been sucker punched into dropping her guard in a matter that found her at her weakest. She clutched onto the rail and she felt weak and her skin felt clammy. She dropped her eyes for a second unable to look the triumphant barrister in the eye who, in this split second, seemed to be prosecuting her for the rape.  
  
"You must answer the question put to you, Miss Betts," came John Deed's low melodious voice.   
  
In that instant, the nightmare vice of steel that had locked its way round Karen's thoughts and paralysed them snapped and, in a moment of clarity, the words formed themselves directly from her thoughts without the conscious connection with her voice.  
  
"I did, indeed, go to the police to press a charge of rape against Jim Fenner. I was advised by Mr Grayling at the time when I first pressed the charges that Area management were unable to press charges while the police prosecution was going ahead. In the end, I had personal reasons at the time in not going ahead with the charge."  
  
"My Lord, the witness is verging on contempt of court in her persistent evasion of a perfectly simple question. If she was so sure in the rightness of her case, then surely she would have sought recompense by the legal channels which as a Wing governor in a prison, she must surely be aware of. If she has been found out of crying 'rape' and not following the matter through, then it surely means that not much credence can be placed on her testimony in the matter of the charges before the defendants."   
  
John Deed saw red at this. The barefaced cheek that Brian Cantwell employed in appealing to him on a matter of law when he was guilty of transgressing the limits that barristers are allowed to go in the examination of a witness. The words 'cry rape' stuck like an arrow into his mind. Beating Jo Mills to it by a hairbreath and Cassie and Roisin who were likewise roused to anger, John Deed let rip. The fact that John Deed jumped in before Yvonne's total fury and lightning thoughts, was unprecedented.  
  
"Mr Cantwell, I direct that this line of questioning that you have introduced be struck from the record. I shall not allow you to pursue the matter further. You have practised at the Bar long enough to be aware of the limits as to how a highly sensitive matter like the matter you have introduced should be pursued. "  
  
Brian Cantwell opened his mouth to protest but it remained open and no words passed his lips when he saw John Deed's fury being directed upon him. In the meantime, Karen took deep breaths, in and out repeatedly out of sheer instinct in this snatched moment when the heat was off her. Sulkily, Brian Cantwell returned to his usual stand to consult his papers.  
  
"Miss Betts," Brian Cantwell said. "Let us turn to the events involving Snowball Merriman's   
  
escape from prison when you drove the accused to the place during the course of which Richard Atkins was inadvertently shot and the possession of the gun. When were you aware that such a weapon existed."  
  
"I first became aware of the gun when Jim Fenner grabbed my handbag, turned it upside down on my desk and it fell out. When I came back to my office afterwards it had disappeared."  
  
"And when were you next aware of the gun."  
  
"When Snowball Merriman stuck the gun into my back." Karen replied with a tired and slightly irritated sigh.  
  
"And you claim that you had no foreknowledge of it before each event."  
  
"Yes," came the reply.  
  
"So how do you explain the remark you made to the accused. 'You only got the gun because of me, I'm not going to risk anyone else's neck.' Surely that implies some foreknowledge of the gun which, after all is a heavy and bulky item."  
  
"Mr Fenner showed me the card 'Don't place your Bets till the rod's in K's bag.' Before he turned out my bag. He explained that I was being set up to smuggle in a gun without my knowledge and his explanation was convincing….."  
  
"What," Mr Cantwell raised his voice with the air of finding a sudden unexpected revelation."the man you accused of rape?"  
  
"Mr Fenner is a professional in the Prison service of many years standing." Karen's tired and fuzzy voice yet articulated the still sharp logic which carried her through."Despite one incident, I have found him to be a professional officer and, in a situation like this, the job matters more than personal feelings. A thorough investigation from top to bottom found no trace of the gun and when it reappeared pushed into my back by Snowball, I felt morally responsible for the gun turning up in this way even though I was not formally responsible for it. Especially as that morning I was with Ritchie Atkins.That's the way I am and I don't change," Karen summoned up a faint ghost of a smile for the first time that day. A small victory but it mattered so much at that point in time."  
  
"Do you have any further questions of the witness? "John Deed asked quietly.  
  
"No further questions" Brian Cantwell replied and Jo Mills indicated that she had no questions to ask, at least inside court.  
  
"Court is closed for the day."  
  
While Karen tottered out of the court, behind the scenes, Fenner's face split into an evil smile wondering how much he got his revenge on that bitch who nearly dragged him into court on a trumped up charge of rape. 


	17. Part Seventeen

Part Seventeen   
  
When Karen came out of court for the second time that day, she felt like she just wanted to crawl away somewhere and hide. She couldn't believe the defense had brought up the rape allegation. So, Fenner had kept his word. All she wanted to do was to go home and talk to no-one. When she saw Yvonne waiting for her, Karen could see the dangerous glint of barely hidden rage in Yvonne's eyes.   
  
"I can't believe he did that," Said Yvonne coming over to her. "He must have squealed to that wanker of a defense barrister."   
  
"Oh, I've no doubt," Said Karen. "All I want to do, is to go home, drink too much, smoke too much and do nothing."   
  
"Sounds like a good plan," Said Yvonne approvingly. They were then approached by Deed's secretary, Mrs. Cooper.   
  
"Karen Betts?" She said, looking between the two women. "The Judge would like to see you in chambers."   
  
Why?" Asked Karen.   
  
"I don't know," Replied Coope. "He just asked me to find you and bring you to see him."   
  
"do you want me to wait?" Asked Yvonne.   
  
"No, it's okay. I don't think I'm going to be very good company this evening."   
  
Karen followed Coope to Deed's chambers. She wondered if his request to see her had anything to do with what Cantwell had questioned her about in court. She knew baristers had a penchant for stooping sometimes as low as the criminals they represented, but she'd never before had cause to fear it. When Coope showed her in, Karen was pleasantly surprised to find Deed reading the paper and drinking tea. When he saw her he stood up and held out his hand.   
  
"ms Betts, good of you to spare me some time." Briefly shaking his proffered hand, Karen replied,   
  
"Please, Sir John, Karen will do. I seem to have spent the entire day being called Ms Betts."   
  
"Then you must call me John. Would you like tea or Scotch?"   
  
"After this afternoon," Said Karen ruefully. "A Scotch would be wonderful." Turning to Coope, he said,   
  
"And could you try and find an ashtray." When John placed a large glass of a fine single molt in front of her, Karen said,   
  
"I'm asuming this is about what happened in court this afternoon."   
  
"Yes. I am clearly in the dark about too much that the defense certainly isn't, which is a situation I'd like to rectify."   
  
"Though I shouldn't say it," Replied Karen. "Keeping people in the dark is how Atkins and Merriman do things."   
  
"So I'm beginning to find out." Coope reappeared with the ashtray and Karen greatfully lit a cigarette.   
  
"So, what is it you want to know?" She asked after taking a deep drag.   
  
"I'd like to know why the allegation you made towards James Fenner wasn't taken further either by the police or by area management. After seeing you give evidence today, I have no doubt that you would only make such an allegation if such a thing had actually taken place." Slightly astounded by his clear belief in her, Karen vowed to give him all the information she could.   
  
"I initially reported it to the police, a day or so after it happened. The policewoman I spoke to at the time said she thought there was only a fifty percent chance that the CPS would take it up. Obviously, I had to inform my boss, Neil Grayling."   
  
"He's one of the witnesses for the prosecution, isn't he?"   
  
"Yes. He's also one of the most spineless men I think I've ever met."   
  
"You'll find that's a word often used to describe those who are high up in the prison service and the Lord Chancellor's department alike."   
  
"I suspect your job is even more about politics than mine is," Said Karen, really beginning to like this man. John laughed.   
  
"Politics and justice aren't the same thing any more. Would I be right in suggesting that it was this spineless individual who persuaded you to drop the charges against James Fenner?"   
  
"How did you guess?" Asked Karen, surprised.   
  
"He sounds just like someone I know from the LCD, that's all."   
  
"He told me that he'd talked to a friend of his in the CPS, who had said off the record, that they weren't going to take up the case." John looked like he'd finally found the knot that had prevented the thread of justice from running smoothly.   
  
"Did Neil Grayling give this friend a name?"   
  
"Yes, I believe he called him Michael Hendry." Deed moved to the door to the outer office and said,   
  
"Coope, could you try and find out if there's someone at the CPS called Michael Hendry?"   
  
"The CPS is a big place, Judge," She replied.   
  
"I don't care how long it takes you," He said, acting like a hound who refused to give up the scent. "I need to know if this person really exists, and if he does, I want to talk to him." When he returned and sat opposite Karen, she asked,   
  
"Are you really serious about trying to find him?"   
  
"At the very least," John replied, "He's got some explaining to do for discussing such a sensitive case with anyone other than those involved, and at the outside, he might be able to shed some light on this."   
  
"The police did say that there was only a fifty percent chance of the CPS taking up the case, mainly because of the lack of physical evidence."   
  
"What evidence did you actually have?"   
  
"Other than my account of the incident, there was an allegation of sexual assault made towards Fenner by another female governor from Larkhall, plus an entire file on his misconduct with various female inmates."   
  
"I've known the CPS take up cases for far less, which gives me reason to believe this was hushed up."   
  
"I'd say that's a certainty, not a possibility," Said Karen, as one with more information to impart.   
  
"I sense there's more?" Deed asked, wondering just where this was going.   
  
"I didn't know this at the time, but I have a feeling that it was to Neil Grayling's advantage if he could persuade me to drop the charges against James Fenner. I believe he used it as something to hold over Fenner."   
  
"This gets even worse than the goings on at the LCD, and that's saying something." Coope knocked and poked her head round the door.   
  
"There's no-one at the CPS called Michael Hendry, Judge."   
  
"Well, he might have left."   
  
"I did a search on their personnel records for the last five years. Nobody with that name whatsoever."   
  
"Thanks, Coope, and I won't ask how you managed to get access to the personnel records of the CPS."   
  
"Best not too, Judge." When Coope had gone, Karen said,   
  
"Wish I had a secretary like her." Deed smiled.   
  
"yes, there isn't much Coope can't do. So, let me get this absolutely clear. You report a rape to the police, they try to put together a case and send it to the CPS. You quite rightly inform your boss, as he might have a conflict of interest. He then tells you that he has spoken to a friend in the CPS, one Michael Hendry who we now know doesn't exist, who supposedly tells him that the police and the CPS are not going to go ahead with the charge. So as not to look completely foolish, you sensibly drop the charge first, and James Fenner is off the hook, which you're telling me was the clear intention of your boss, who ought to know better."   
  
"Something like that," Agreed Karen.   
  
"What I want to know is," Continued John, "Who was it that Neil Grayling did speak too. It must have been someone high up or he wouldn't have been so assured of the fact that the case wouldn't be taken any further."   
  
"Neil's always had friends in high places," Remarked Karen dryly. Coope again put her head round the door.   
  
"Sir Ian Rochester and Lawrence James to see you, Judge."   
  
"Tough," Was his curt response. "I'm busy."   
  
"I have the feeling Sir Ian will insist, Judge."   
  
"Why, what have I done this time?"   
  
"I couldn't begin to suggest, Judge. But the rumour is, Brian Cantwell has resigned as defense barrister."   
  
"Well, thank god for small murcies," Said John.   
  
"That all depends who they get in his place," Added Karen.   
  
"There couldn't possibly be anyone worse than that excuse for a human being. Thank you for being so honest with me, Karen. Do I have your permission to look in to this matter?" Karen was greatful to him for asking, as she knew he could have done so without her say so.   
  
"Of course, Judge." As she moved towards the door, he briefly touched her shoulder.   
  
"Such an injustice should not go unpunished," He said gently. "I will do all I can to see that at the very least, this type of cover up never happens again." The sincerity in his voice brought brief tears to her eyes. As she walked through the outer office, she saw the figures of Sir Ian Rochester and the snake-like Lawrence James. Not envying the Judge his upcoming interview one bit, she walked through the foyer and out in to the bright sun of a late August afternoon. There was air conditioning inside the old court building, and the heat hit Karen at the same time as the realisation that Neil had lied to her all those months ago. He'd given her the name and number of his supposed friend in the CPS, knowing that she had no reason not to trust his word. Feeling the anger rise in her like bile, she tugged out her mobile. When Yvonne answered, Karen said,   
  
"Do you know a really good cure for blistering rage?"   
  
"Yes," Said Yvonne without a second thought, "Ten swift laps of this pool, best antidote I've ever known. Why?"   
  
"I'll tell you why later. Can I come and borrow your pool?"   
  
"Sure. Shall I put a Scotch on ice?"   
  
"Yes please, an extremely large one. If the defense barrister doesn't take the opportunity to make mincemeat of Grayling tomorrow, I certainly will be." 


	18. Part Eighteen

Part 18   
  
John Deed's mood was lightened by the presence of Karen Betts who impressed him with his strength of character, as it had been a trying day. Although John Deed's mindset was inextricably linked to his active appreciation, long cultivated, of female charms, he was equally receptive to the more platonic side of human characteristics of principle, honesty, trustworthiness and strength of character. The sensualist and the philosopher were always in a state of uneasy coexistence within John Deed's psyche. Karen Betts impressed him on both counts and, seeing her in his chambers brought her into sharp focus, and her extraordinary story was one he believed implicitly. He had always had a passionate ability to identify with the victim of injustice but this was more than that. She might easily stand inside his shoes in his dealings with the Sir Ian's and Lawrence James of this world and he, likewise with this Neil Grayling. It was moments like this that gave him the positive strength to carry on in his self imposed quest when at times he was flagging and he was only clinging on by his fingertips with grim duty to sustain him. His reflective mood was suitably christened by a glass of sherry which he sipped out of the cut glass goblet in its honour.  
  
A loud rat-tat of the door shattered this mood abruptly. Oh God, his minders, Sir Ian and Lawrence James were there. In the seconds left before his chambers were to be invaded by the Political Conformity hit squad, his mind flashbacked to school when the English teacher read that interminable Coleridge poem,"Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner". While he had always deeply sympathised with the plight of the narrator, forever destined to sail the Seven Seas with a dead albatross fastened round his neck as symbol of his sins, the tragedy of the poem was never so poignant as now. But why should he be singled out for their favours, why couldn't they bother Niven or Cantwell or someone who actually welcomed their unwanted advice?   
  
The door opened silently and reluctantly as if in sympathy with John Deed and, there they stood in the doorway, cluttering up his pleasant and civilised surroundings.  
  
"I suppose, Ian, that you are going to head a public protest for justice for the deceased American photographer who was killed by the defendant? You need to be careful if you intend to chain yourself to the railings outside Number Ten of carrying a spare set of keys with which to unlock yourself. It gets very cold and dark at night round there or so I understand." John Deed opened the hostilities, remembering the last topic of conversation which he knew very well Sir Ian would have forgotten.  
  
As predicted, a vacant puzzled expression passed over Sir Ian's eyes.  
  
"Don't know what you are talking about, Deed. Is this some sort of a prank?" He hissed the last few words as he squinted at him, trying to overpower John Deed by his force of personality. Unfortunately, his bullying style, while quite adequate to intimidate an underling in his Department, desperate to further his career, was about as effective against John Deed as a chocolate fireguard.  
  
"Don't you remember, Ian, your passionate speech impressing on me the 'feelings of the family of the murdered photographer' I was much moved by your fine words and almost persuaded of the strength of your arguments. Almost but not quite. A public protest is the next logical step, Ian, is it not."John Deed replied in his most maddeningly teasing way.  
  
"That would be going a little bit too far, Deed." Sir Ian replied stiffly, the twitch of his face being the surefire giveaway to John Deed how much of a liar Sir Ian is. This is why Sir Ian loathes me so much, John Deed reflected as he could always see through him.  
  
"I do not think that the Department would approve of top civil servants lowering their standards and their sense of dignity by following in the footsteps of every common rabble rouser on the streets. "Lawrence James's harsh humourless voice appeared to struggle its way up through his larynx.  
  
Putting discreet pressure on circuit judges to bend the rules to save their skin is quite within their standards, John Deed's thoughts could be read in every nuance of the not so thinly veiled contempt in his eyes.   
  
"To come to the point, Deed." Sir Ian hastily moved the debate onwards. "We feel very unhappy with the performance that the witness, Miss Betts, displayed today. You are prejudicing the basic standards of the British legal system in allowing the witness to evade direct questions on a matter that we felt, provided the acid test on her credulity as a witness."  
  
"There is of course well established legal precedents that the victim of a rape seeking justice in the courts should not be under trial though, of course, questioning in a suitable form of words is permitted to test the credibility of the witness. The accusation of 'crying rape' goes far beyond what I am prepared to permit in a court of law."  
  
"Nice to see the way you uphold these 'politically correct' ideas." Sir Ian said with a sneer, especially on the phrase 'politically correct' as if he were spitting an unwelcome fly that had appeared in his cordon bleu soup served up at the Dorchester Hotel.  
  
"I have stood for ideas and ideals since my youth that predated political correctness." John Deed dryly and crushingly retorted. "And I would be interested to know precisely how Brian Cantwell happened to come across matters concerning Miss Betts that conversation with the defendants, Snowball Merriman and Ritchie Atkins would be unlikely to be aware of from my understanding of the chronology of the case. Wouldn't you be similarly interested, Ian?" John Deed finished quietly with raised eyebrows and his sharp eyesight looking straight into Sir Ian's wavering eyes.  
  
Sir Ian was suddenly seized with a repeated coughing bout so badly that Coope, hearing what was going on, rushed forward with a glass of water which Sir Ian accepted gratefully.  
  
"As you know, old boy, we always allow the judicial processes to proceed their own way. All this was news to me, Deed." Sir Ian finished on a strangulated tone, the aftermath of the cough still ripping into his throat.  
  
"Quite, " John Deed replied with all the disbelief in the world evident in just one word.  
  
"But on this one occasion, we can only repeat our advice most strongly that the case is fundamentally unsound. The whole case appears to us to be shaky and it seems bound to proceed from bad to worse." Sir Ian repeated at the end of his tether.  
  
"But you, Deed, as always will carry on with the trial with all your stiff necked obstinate pride." Lawrence James chorussed his Master's disapproval." Without any respect for the views of the Lord Chancellor's Department."  
  
John Deed smiled broadly for the first time during the course of the interview. A vision of the cell door clanging shut, locking the outraged Lawrence James in a cell after John Deed had him jailed briefly for contempt of court. He still fondly reminisced on the quivering sound of Lawrence James 'unreservedly apologising' to that teasing provoking man with all the majesty of the law at the pack of him and the keys of the cell at his command. He had to admit to himself that he gained impish amusement at some of his more outrageous moments and that was one of his better ones. Behind the red robes and gravity of his manner, he was an unquenchable prankster and fearless wielder of the sharp pointed needle to puncture overblown pride and pomposity. And this man had the nerve to talk to him of 'stiff necked pride.'  
  
"What's so funny, Deed?" Sir Ian asked in a nasty tone.  
  
"Oh nothing, nothing." And in truth how could he explain his thoughts to two people who shared the same legal system but inhabited different planets in their outlooks on life. And he's been at school with one of them.  
  
"Well, since you've said that you let the judiciary to proceed in its own way, and I have a reputation for doing just that, then I shall carry on as usual. But I thank you for your continued interest in my welfare. I am totally unable to express the depth of my feelings were you two to desert me and favour another judge with your opinions."   
  
Perhaps it was the deadpan expression in John Deed's voice and facial expression with no outward show of the cutting irony of his words that caused the suppressed anger in Sir Ian and Lawrence James to finally boil over.   
  
"This trial has not been a very lucky one for you so far, Deed. You would do well to be careful in case there are any other unfortunate incidents in the trial that would compromise your reputation, Deed." Sir Ian snapped and with his sidekick in tow made for the door.  
  
"Oh yes, for your information, Deed." Sir Ian added with pure malice in his eyes." I had a very interesting conversation with a certain Neil Grayling, the Governing Governor of Larkhall. He told me a very interesting story about one Karen Betts who was pursuing a rape allegation against a colleague of hers. Both of us agreed that it would not be in the best interest of the Prison Service if this sort of dirty linen were exposed for all the press and public to see. There's too much muckraking around these days. Not like in the old days."  
  
A loud crash behind them was Sir Ian taking his anger out on the door. Behind it, John Deed stood , as if a frozen statue, trying to deal with this parting shot. He was unable to even start to collect his thoughts into any logical order.  
  
Down the windblown streets, fallen leafs of thoughts, spoken and unspoken whirled and fluttered and there are those freethinking people whose sharp eyes and sense of touch drew these leaves into their orbit. These thoughts were there already waiting for somebody to be around to collect. One such insight blew past Sir Ian as he left the chambers, that Sir Ian hated John Deed only because he saw through him, saw the mixture of self deceit, pomposity, base ambition and that lack of selflessness. Why should Sir Ian bother with such thoughts because he had, in his fashion, always fitted in at public school and then in his sure and certain elevation up the career ladder. John Deed had always been a rank outsider yet Sir Ian would never know that that outsider status gave John Deed his freedom, to breathe comfortably within himself and be his mildly outrageous self. Sir Ian and Lawrence James were collected in their limousine back to the  
  
sterile artificiality and luxury of the imposing Georgian magnificence of the Lord Chancellor's Department where they felt most at home.  
  
At night-time, Fenner lay in an untroubled sleep, as his conscience was clear. Of course, the nightime shot of whisky helped. Into his unconscious swam closer one of the faces whom he most hated and feared. It was the mocking, hard-edged stare of Yvonne Atkins under her fringe of hair and her hawk like expression. The bitch knew, he woke up with a start. The bitch always knew and could see through him. He was not that stupid that he couldn't see that one. 


	19. Part Nineteen

Part Nineteen   
  
When Karen arrived at Yvonne's, complete with bikini, her anger had worked itself up in to a fury Yvonne hadn't seen since she'd tried to get over the wall after the O'kane fiasco.   
  
"What the hell's eaten you?" Asked Yvonne, opening the door to her.   
  
"Bloody Neil Grayling!"   
  
"Why, what's he done?" Then, on seeing just how wound up Karen was, she gestured up the stairs and said,   
  
"Swim first and talk later. You'll find a towel in the airing cupboard." When Karen appeared in the garden a few minutes later, she found Yvonne and Roisin sunbathing, Cassie languishing in the pool and Lauren stood in the middle of the lawn giving Trigger a brush. Karen was wearing a simple black bikini which accentuated her cleavage to perfection. Cassie who had been laughing at something Lauren had said, almost lost her footing when she saw Karen, who threw a large blue towel on to one of the sun loungers and moved towards the edge of the pool. Cassie just stared at her, mouth agape. Yvonne took one look at Cassie and laughed.   
  
"Cassie, put your tongue back in," She said, quite unable to take the grin off her face. Cassie came back to her senses and said,   
  
"So that's what you've been hiding under all those suits." Under normal circumstances, Karen had legs to die for, but clad in only a brief black bikini, her legs seemed to go on for ever and Cassie privately thought that she could get lost in a cleavage like that. The coolness of the water seemed to soothe Karen's crackling nerves. She moved swiftly through the water, working off her anger. When her rage began to subside, she simply allowed herself to drift from one end of the pool to the other. Roisin was flicking through a magazine, whilst Yvonne sorted through the day's post. Karen was listening with half an ear to Cassie and Lauren's conversation, but she was mainly giving her brain a chance to relax. As she lay on her back, gently moving her arms to keep herself afloat, she could gradually feel the hurt and anger at Neil's deception draining out of her. She could get used to the surroundings of Yvonne's house, she realised, and that in itself was a mark of how much she'd changed over the last year. When had her metamorphosis begun, she wasn't sure. Was it when Fenner had raped her, or was it even further back, when she'd found his porn mag and Maxi's knickers, she didn't know. She'd been with no man since Ritchie, and that was over a year ago now. Yes, she knew that she was currently emotionally raw, both from the effects of the trial and her total undoing with Yvonne the night before. But in spite of all this, Karen thought she might for the first time in her life, be on the verge of being happy with what she had. Yes, she missed having someone to hold her at night, she missed that feeling of completeness that only waking up with someone could bring, but this was an emptiness she was learning to accept. She also thought that maybe the lack of sexual company didn't matter to her so much because she'd found such a good friend in Yvonne. Female friends weren't something she'd ever gone in for in a big way as a rule, but with Yvonne it was different. After Ritchie had been shot, her and Yvonne seemed to gravitate towards each other, both seeking the same level of reassurance with the knowledge that they were both terrible mothers. When she'd taken Yvonne for that drink, after visiting Ritchie, that had felt like the most normal thing Karen had done in a long time. Ever since Yvonne had been released, they'd kept up their friendship, even though Karen had fully expected Yvonne to totally forget her existence.   
  
When she finally dragged herself out of the all too addictive water, Karen briefly dried herself off with a towel and spralled on one of the sunloungers. Taking a swig of the Scotch Yvonne had poured for her, she reflected that she couldn't possibly be in better surroundings. The sun beat down on her body, and she felt for the most part content.   
  
"So, what was all that about in court this afternoon?" Asked Yvonne.   
  
"Fenner clearly took the opportunity of telling the defense barrister all about the supposed fake allegation."   
  
"So, what's Grayling got to do with this?"   
  
"When I went to the police about Fenner last year, I naturally had to tell Neil about it. With two of his staff at opposite ends of a possible court case, he would have had a conflict of interest. So, a little while after this, he called me in to his office, saying that he'd spoken to someone in the CPS who had told him that they weren't going to take up the case. He managed to persuade me that it was in my best interest to drop the charge before the police did." Yvonne was looking very interested by this time.   
  
"Is that what the judge wanted to see you about?" Yvonne asked.   
  
"Yes, he wanted to know why the case hadn't been pursued. It turns out that Neil Grayling didn't speak to anyone in the CPS at all. The person he told me he had spoken to doesn't even exist."   
  
"You what?"   
  
"Yeah, I know. The judge is going to look in to it and find out exactly who Grayling did speak too. He had to have talked to someone to know that the case wasn't going to be taken up."   
  
"The conniving little wanker," Was Yvonne's summing up of the situation.   
  
"Quite."   
  
"And I'll give you one guess why Grayling wanted you to drop the case against Fenner," Yvonne continued. "He wanted something to hold over Fenner so that Fenner would have to owe him one."   
  
"Takes one to know one, Mum," Said Lauren affectionately. Yvonne playfully swatted at her with the mastercard bill that was lying on the table. Cassie, having heard part of the conversation, got out of the pool and walked towards them dripping water over Roisin's slowly tanning body as she passed.   
  
"What's Fenner done now?" She asked. The sudden silence that greeted her question was deafening. "What've I said?" Asked Cassie, feeling like she'd walked in on a conversation not meant for her ears.   
  
"Cass, I don't think you were meant to ask," Roisin pointed out quietly. Cassie blushed slightly.   
  
"Sorry," She said, "Me and my big mouth." Karen broke the silence by asking,   
  
"Can I borrow your shower?"   
  
"Sure, said Yvonne. There's numerous bathrooms upstairs so take your pick." When Karen had gone upstairs, Yvonne said,   
  
"It isn't my story to tell, Cassie."   
  
"Yeah, I gathered that," Replied Cassie. "I'm sorry."   
  
"It's okay," Said Yvonne quietly.   
  
"Was it something he did to her?" Asked Roisin.   
  
"That's obvious," Replied Cassie.   
  
"This is Fenner we're talking about," put in lauren. "Mum, going on what the defense tried to ask her about in court, I'm assuming he raped her."   
  
"Lauren, it isn't up to me to tell you this."   
  
"He did, didn't he?" Persisted Cassie.   
  
"Yes, he did. Now can we drop it?"   
  
"God, poor Karen," murmured Roisin.   
  
"Which is precisely why this doesn't get talked about," Said Yvonne, her voice growing firm. "Is that clear?" It needed none of them to verrify that it was.   
  
When Karen reappeared some time later, Cassie privately thought that she looked almost overdressed.   
  
"Are you okay?" Asked Yvonne quietly, thinking that Cassie's untimely question had possibly undone all the good work of the relaxing swim.   
  
"I will be," Replied Karen. "I've got to check up on how Di and Sylvia are coping in my absence, so I'd better be off."   
  
"I can think of better ways to finish off a bad day," Said Yvonne.   
  
"The joys of being a wing governor I'm afraid. I'll see you tomorrow." When Karen had left, Yvonne went in to her kitchen and began chopping vegetables for a bolognaise.   
  
"Are you two staying for tea?" She asked Cassie and Roisin.   
  
"If you're cooking," Replied Cassie, "Definitely."   
  
"Bloody cheek, Cassie Tyler," said Roisin in mock affrontedness. Then, turning to Yvonne she said, "This one lived out of the microwave or restaurants before she met me."   
  
"Yeah, I bet she did."   
  
"Can I do anything?" Asked Roisin.   
  
"You can come and keep me company while lazy arse over there tops up her tan," Yvonne said, gesturing to Cassie who was undoing her bikini top with the clear intent of sunbathing topless.   
  
"You don't mind?" she asked Yvonne over her shoulder.   
  
"No," Said Yvonne, taking note of Lauren's brief appraising glance in Cassie's direction. "why do you think this garden is as enclosed as possible."   
  
Once away from the prying ears of her nearest and dearest, Roisin asked,   
  
"What happened with Karen and Fenner's really getting to you, isn't it?" Yvonne loathed the sound of Karen's and Fenner's names spoken together like that, but she tried not to show it.   
  
"Yeah, a bit," She conceded. "I feel so useless. It happened over a year ago and she hasn't even begun to deal with it, and I haven't got a clue how to help her."   
  
"When did she tell you about it?"   
  
"Last night. I've known her as a friend since before I got out, and she couldn't tell me any of this until it was absolutely necessary. Does that make me a shit friend or what."   
  
"Good god, Yvonne, give yourself a break will you. Telling anyone about such a painful thing is something we only ever do when we have too. It isn't something anyone usually does by choice."   
  
"It totally did her in talking about it."   
  
"That's hardly a surprise."   
  
"But what the hell am I supposed to do? I've never seen Karen like that, not ever. She's always been the strong one, the together one, the one out of both of us who could deal with whatever life threw at her." Roisin smiled.   
  
"Yvonne, will you listen to yourself for a minute. You've just given a perfect description of not just Karen, but you as well. You're both incredibly similar, you know."   
  
"Yeah, right, one a screw, the other an ex-con, really similar."   
  
"Yvonne, for once in your life, listen to me. You and Karen are probably two of the strongest women I've ever met. Much as I love Cassie, strong as steel is something she'll never be, no matter how much she makes out she is. But just because someone appears to be in total control of everything they do, doesn't mean they can't have weak points. We all have areas of our lives where we are incredibly vulnerable. Clearly what happened with Fenner is Karen's."   
  
"I just don't know how I can get her through this."   
  
"You can't," Said Roisin softly. "It's something only she can do. All you can do is to be there for her when she wants you, and not to crowd her when she doesn't. The fact that she opened up to you at all is a good sign. It proves she trusts you."   
  
"Apart from some nameless copper, I'm the first person she's ever given details too."   
  
"There you are, then. In the beginning, Cassie was there for me, as a friend, and I couldn't have done without her. Just do the same for Karen."   
  
"Did this happen to you?" Asked Yvonne.   
  
"Yeah," Replied Roisin. "Aiden occasionally took the Roman Catholic tradition of a husband's rights to the letter."   
  
"I'm sorry," Said Yvonne, thinking that far too many men had a lot to answer for.   
  
"That's how I know that Karen probably has mixed feelings about telling anyone about what happened to her. She'll feel like it was her fault, and she'll feel ashamed. The best thing you can do is to keep letting her know that she didn't deserve it and that you're there for her." Roisin moved forward and gave Yvonne a hug. "Just don't forget that as her friend, you might have to offload occasionally too."   
  
"I hope you're not leading my mum astray," Came Lauren's voice from the doorway.   
  
"I don't think your mother needs leading astray," Said Roisin going out in to the garden to see how Cassie's tan was doing.   
  
"You all right?" Asked Lauren.   
  
"Yeah," Replied Yvonne, a little shell-shocked from her conversation with Roisin. "There's something you should know. I made a threat to Fenner this morning that after his performance today I'm going to have to follow up on."   
  
"so, that's why you went to court early?"   
  
"Something like that. I told him that if he either laid another finger on Karen, or if he kept his promise to discredit Karen's evidence, I'd have him nailed."   
  
"Shit, Mum!"   
  
"I know, I know. But what was I supposed to do, sit back and do nothing?"   
  
"No, I guess not. But I take it you don't want to end up back inside?"   
  
"no, and if I've got anything to do with it you're not going there either."   
  
"Okay, leave it with me and I'll see what we can do about that evil bastard."   
  
"If he's a good little boy and tells the truth in court tomorrow, then maybe I'll think about leaving him alone. But if he doesn't keep to the deal, I want him out of the picture for good." 


	20. Part Twenty

Part Twenty   
  
It was that night when Brian Cantwell had been drinking the fourth night time whisky alone that he finally decided to throw in the towel on the Atkins Merriman case. His favourite place to work at home was seated at his carved oak table in the dining room which was a room far removed from the general thoroughfare in his mock Georgian home in Esher. The papers were strewn on his desk in front of him and all his past jottings in the days when he was confident of his case looked up at him in disbelief. Then he felt confident that his verbal powers could persuade twelve good men and women of England in the English jury of his client's innocence. Now his notes which spoke back to him ceased to inspire him with any confidence. The ornate clock on the wall rang out nine o clock and counted down the hours till he knew in advance that he must quit.  
  
The first doubts started to insinuate themselves into his self belief on the first day in Mrs Atkins's testimony. He instinctively believed what she said that the fifty thousand pounds that his client Ritchie Atkins had scammed off her was paying for his defence. It was the tones of bitterness and betrayal that were ripped out of the very hard faced woman on the stand as if under torture. Normally she was the last sort of person he would believe being the sort of distasteful godmother Eastend character out of a third rate gangster film. Brian Cantwell was a cynic about human feelings and had grown an armour plated shell around himself that convinced himself that nearly all tear jerking performances from the dock were designed to get the client off the hook for crimes that the criminals had actually committed. He had seen people walk off Scot free from crimes where he himself had engineered their freedom. He didn't mind that as his job was simply a forensic exercise of which side of the case he stood and, as a prosecuting council, he might as easily be a defence council and could put himself in the hands of that other barrister.So long as the clients paid handsomely, that was one thing that mattered, the other being his frustrated ambition to become a Circuit Judge. They all came from the same club, after all, except………..naïve campaigning crusaders like Jo Mills, still wet behind the ears and that insufferable prig, Deed who was old enough to know better but didn't and occupied that throne on high which he deserved to sit in by rights. The thought of that made him take a deep swallow from his whisky goblet.  
  
The memory of the Prison Officer as he approached him came to mind. When he had introduced himself with a firm handshake and friendly manner, the thought struck him as to what was this man's game? He was James Fenner, witness for the prosecution that, by rights, ought to steer clear of him as if he had leprosy. He could hardly believe his ears especially as the man was up on the stand the next day. He was on the other side, dammit. He shouldn't really complain and later, remembered with a feeling of pleasure that, for whatever reason, the man was feeding him with a nice juicy titbit which he knew well enough to exploit to the hilt.   
  
He was on a roll when he cross examined Miss Betts today and he savoured the exact moment when he let her know for public knowledge the one matter which , by the expression on her face, ought to have broken her credibility. He was that close to the case going his way if it weren't for that damned accursed fellow, Deed at his most priggish. It was as if he had had a cold bucket of water thrown over him at the moment that he was approaching a climax, which, these days with his wife the way she was, was becoming a distant memory.   
  
When all the anger was driven out of him by a sufficient amount of alcohol, his mind was made up. Today was one of Jo Mill's chief witnesses' experience of treading on an unexpected banana skin and falling headlong. Tomorrow, it might be his turn for one of his, who can tell? The whole thing was becoming too damned unpredictable and better someone else picked up the poisoned chalice and that he seek some nice 'no blame' case in an insurance fraud trial, some sound, cut and dried business case.  
  
In any case, an unaccustomed twinge of conscience came to his mind, the thought that Mrs Atkins was paying for her guilty son's defence. That was a bad sign. When he first saw the clients, Ritchie Atkins had made himself out to be a young man with easy if indefinite ways of making a lot of money which quite frankly grated on him from his generation's ingrained values of working for his money. He carried himself with the air of someone who had had it too easy. Now he knew the truth and he had had enough.  
  
"This is too much," John Deed stormed and raved. "The further this case goes on, the more it is riddled and interwoven with corruption as only a …as a …British Government could get."   
  
The last words were dragged from John Deed's mind as a sudden revelation as to how things had gone to the dogs, another inevitable old-fashioned phrase. Only it wasn't some onward march of 'trendy lefties' dismantling the world of Empire but a new corrupt spirit of political expediency that forced itself more and more on his mind. Only a few years ago, he would have invoked the words of a 'banana republic' as his exemplar of a society totally rotted from within. By implication, Great Britain still stood as an example of justice and the rule of law. He could no longer sustain that belief and that was what cut him to the core. He could only sustain the standards which he passionately believed in.  
  
"The British Constitution is unique in its separation of the executive, the legislature and the judiciary, "his old teacher, Mr Charlton had spoken many years ago. He could still picture the enthusiastic charismatic teacher, slightly grey haired who swept the brighter more idealistic pupils, himself included, along the magic carpet ride of his ideals. He hadn't seen his old teacher for so many years and didn't even know if he was still alive. In his mind he and his boundless enthusiasm was still very much alive. That was another age, John Deed thought ruefully and he is one of the few witnesses to the beliefs in England that once was, or had never been or which must be if there was any prospect of a better world. It was this guiding light that had illuminated the complicated path in life he had trod. It was sickeningly, horrifyingly obvious that all three branches of government were all tightly and corruptly knit together. My God, that in such disconnected events, the crime by James Fenner against Karen Betts, not brought to book and the attempts to derail this trial, Sir Ian Rochester was implicated up to his neck in a swamp of corruption.   
  
Jo Mills knew from experience when to speak when John Deed had calmed down and laid her hand gently on his brow. He had stared blindly into the distance at some vision that only he could see. She wasn't even sure that he was aware that she was in the room. It was finally that touch of human feeling which brought him to himself.  
  
"I think you ought to know, Jo, that Neil Grayling had spoken to Sir Ian when he dissuaded your client Karen Betts from pressing rape charges against a fellow witness, James Fenner. Neil Grayling deliberately lied to Karen Betts when he said that he'd talked to a friend of his in the CPS, called Michael Hendry, who had said off the record, that they weren't going to take up the case. I have since established to my satisfaction that no such person has ever worked for the CPS. Only I have now been informed by Ian Rochester himself that, in reality, Neil Grayling spoke to that very same weasly corrupt man who, between them, concocted the whole cover up. And I am being repeatedly pressurized by them to collude with them in another cover up. By God they won't get away with this one, not while I have one breath in my body."  
  
Jo Mills turned white with shock at the deadly game being played out against them and the widening dimension of cover up. She felt a wave of real concern for John Deed to see how much of an effort that ingrained habits of the law just barely controlled him to recount in terse logical order what had happened and the way at the end that the lid on the emotional pressure cooker threatened to blow off and reveal the complex, deeply emotional man that she totally knew him to be. About how she felt about what John was saying, she couldn't even begin to guess. She would have to catch up with her own feelings later on.  
  
"Can I stay the night with you, Jo." He spoke almost in a little boy voice, so unlike his normal manner of the self assured older sometimes lover that she knew him to be.  
  
"Of course, John." Her sometimes stern voice at the bar gave way to the tenderness she always felt for him no matter how exasperating and contrary she knew him to be. For one night, this was not the pupil and master relationship at work even though the next day this would inevitably reassert itself when John Deed had returned to normal.   
  
  
  
Suddenly the phone rang and John Deed leant over out of bed to pick it up. Jo lay on her side; her hand resting on John's shoulder in a moment of tenderness after an evening of lovemaking which was partly to comfort each other.   
  
"Deed, here." He announced in flat tones.  
  
"John darling," George Channing's voice made John Deed jump. It was if he were out for a stroll in the Essex countryside and a red London bus suddenly turned the corner, a combination of the sudden shock and the sheer incongruity. Her normally very elegant and bossy tones had an undercurrent of the seductive. "I thought I'd be the first to tell you that you are about to have me come back into your life."  
  
John Deed at this point became very nervous and unsettled. Was the woman proposing remarriage after the bitter fighting cat and dog union that limped its way with relief into the divorce courts? After all, look what had happened to Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in their remarriage many years ago.  
  
"I mean, darling, welcome to the new defence barrister in the Crown versus Merriman and Atkins case. It will be like old times."  
  
When John Deed brought the conversation to as rapid a close as politely as he could do so, he reflected that, for once George was right. But those old times were nothing to get nostalgic about, certainly not on a case as slippery as this and which was subject to political interference almost as a routine. And added to the diabolical brew was a new defence barrister with, via her bed, a hot line to a Government Minister, one Neil Houghton.  
  
Jo Mills looked at John Deed with an anxious and protective gaze.  
  
"Just when you thought that life was incapable of bowling you another googly at you, it suddenly does." John smiled shaking his head. The matter was fast becoming some kind of grotesque farce which provoked a twisted reaction to laugh at, rather than metaphorically to fall on his sword. "We now know for certain that Cantwell has resigned and who will be his successor. Let that wait to the morning, Jo. We have better things to do."  
  
Who other than John Deed could she share sex with discussing legal cases, Jo shook her head in disbelief as he came to her? The whole thing was mad. But in that case, why was she sharing John Deed's bed if she or him were entirely sane. 


	21. Part Twenty One

Part Twenty One   
  
On the Wednesday morning, Karen joined the others in the public gallery.   
  
"It'll make a change to watch Fenner being put through the mill," She remarked to Yvonne.   
  
"Yeah, well, let's just hope he sticks to the truth," Replied Yvonne, remembering her threat to him of the day before. As they watched the elegant figure of Georgia Channing take her place at the defense bench instead of the smarmy-looking Brian Cantwell, Yvonne said, "Who the hell is she?"   
  
"Oh, I forgot to tell you. When I was talking to the judge yesterday, his secretary mentioned that the other barrister had resigned. I suppose she must be his replacement."   
  
"Yeah," Mused Yvonne. "Looks like Ritchie's going up in the world. There's no way that one'll take shit from anyone."   
  
When Fenner stood on the stand and held the bible to intone the oath, Yvonne whispered to Karen,   
  
"Only the devil would keep that one safe." At this, Karen briefly remembered Helen Stewart once having told her that Jim Fenner had the luck of the devil. How right she'd been. Jo moved forward and looked at Fenner with something akin to contempt.   
  
"Principle Officer Fenner. Am I right in stating that whilst your wing governor was away on holiday, it was your responsibility to deal with any applications put forward by inmates?" George Channing raised her hand.   
  
"My Lord," She began in the aristocratic tones which had so long ago lured Deed to her bed, "I fail to see the relevance of this." Oh, she's started, thought Jo with a level of resignation that spoke of previous experience.   
  
"My Lord," Jo responded, "I am simply trying to establish how the defendent Snowball Merriman was able to obtain access to the prison library so soon after her entrance in to Larkhall."   
  
"Please continue, Mrs. Mills," Came Deed's reply, totally ignoring George's interruption. Jo continued.   
  
"Please could you answer the question, Mr. Fenner?"   
  
"No, any decisions usually made by the wing governor were dealt with by the governing governor."   
  
"Are you absolutely sure about that?" Asked Jo, moving to the prosecution bench to retrieve Yvonne's statement. "Because Mrs. Atkins said in her testamony that Snowball Merriman," Here she began to read from her notes, "Got very pally with her personal officer, Jim Fenner. She hadn't been in five minutes when she got made up to a red band and given a job in the library. Does this not suggest at the very least some involvement on your part, and at the most sole authority over this type of decision?"   
  
"Yeah, Well, you don't want to believe Atkins. Would you believe one of Her Majesty's prison officers over a con?" Remembering what she'd learnt about this man the night before, Jo looked him straight in the eye.   
  
"In this, as in many other circumstances, yes I would." Hearing the level of disgust and loathing in Jo's voice, Karen briefly wondered if the Judge had told Jo everything she'd said yesterday. Jo returned to the attack.   
  
"So, I will ask you again, Principle Officer Fenner, did you or did you not give Snowball Merriman her enhanced status and promote her to a red band, and in so doing give her direct and almost sole access to the library, where she later constructed her bomb?"   
  
"Yes," Said Fenner, clearly hating this woman who had showed him up for a fool.   
  
"Now," Jo continued, "Would you tell the jury of the two pieces of information which were given to you by snowball Merriman?"   
  
"When she'd been in Larkhall for about a fortnight, she told me there was going to be a break out."   
  
"And did she suggest who was going to be making this break out?"   
  
"She said it was Yvonne Atkins."   
  
"And you automatically believed a woman who had only been an inmate of Larkhall prison for two weeks?"   
  
"Atkins had made two previous escape attempts."   
  
"That's as maybe," Conceded Jo. "And please would you enlighten us all as to how the defendent further led you to believe that Yvonne Atkins was planning an escape attempt."   
  
"It was when she brought me the card from the bouquet of flowers." George held up her hand.   
  
"What card is this?" Both John and Jo stared at Georgia Channing with utter astonishment.   
  
"Ms Channing," Replied John. "this is part of the evidence, which as defense barrister I would have thought you would have been aware of."   
  
"And you are well aware that I only came to this case yesterday," Replied George with little regard for the usual decorum required in the courtroom.   
  
"Your fault you didn't ask for an adjournment," Put in Jo quietly.   
  
"Quite," Agreed John hearing Jo's little aside.   
  
"Might I continue questioning my witness?" Asked Jo. At the nod from John, she returned to Fenner.   
  
"Please continue, Mr. Fenner."   
  
"Merriman brought me the card from the bouquet Atkins had received from her son."   
  
"And what were the words on this card?"   
  
"If memory serves, at the bottom it said, I love you, Mum, and higher up it said, don't place your bets till the rod's in K's bag." Jo again retrieved the card from the evidence bench.   
  
"Is this the card in question?"   
  
"Yes." Before Jo could return it to the evidence bench, George moved forward and plucked it out of Jo's hand so she could take a look.   
  
"The time for getting to grips with the evidence is during an adjournment, not the trial itself," Said Jo for all to hear.   
  
"I don't need you to tell me how to do my job," Said George, her anger rising.   
  
"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it, George," Said Jo, taking back the card.   
  
"Ladies," Came Deed's slightly admonishing tone, "This is neither the time nor the place." Jo returned to her questioning.   
  
"Mr. Fenner. What did Snowball Merriman say to you when she gave you the card?"   
  
"She said, isn't rod another name for a gun? That means there's a gun hidden in Karen Betts' handbag to help Atkins escape." George got up again. John was really getting tired of this.   
  
"My Lord, is there proof of this?" She asked.   
  
"Surely you can find this out in cross-examination, Ms Channing. Please don't disturb this court again if your objection is so feeble." The hackles could almost be seen rising on George's neck.   
  
"Finally, Mr. Fenner, could you tell the jury what Snowball Merriman's reaction was once she had been apprehended and put in segregation?"   
  
"She asked if this was all we could do to her. Then, she put on that fake American accent and said, Well, if I'm not on death row, I'm on holiday." Jo allowed these words to sink in with the jury and finally said,   
  
"No further questions."   
  
George didn't give John a chance to ask her forward, she moved to stand in front of Fenner with the grace and stealth of a cat.   
  
"Mr. Fenner, or should I say Principle Officer Fenner. Is it your usual routine to become very pally, as I believe Mrs. Atkins put it, with prisoners in your charge?" Fenner was furious.   
  
"No, it isn't." George held up a file and waved it at Fenner.   
  
"I think the jury ought to know that this isn't actually the case. Do the names Rachel Hicks, Michelle Dockley and Maxine Purvis mean anything to you?" Fenner didn't answer. "Would I be right in suggesting that you have had relationships with all three of these prisoners, two of whom are now dead by suicide?"   
  
"Excuse me," Said Fenner in a mock-innocent voice, "But I'm not the one on trial here."   
  
"No, but perhaps you should be," Replied George. "Might I remind you of your involvement with Maxine Purvis, in which she also manipulated you in to believing that Yvonne Atkins was guilty of murdering another inmate, Virginia O'kane. Does the similarity of that incident with this one not strike you as something to at the very least think about?"   
  
"No!" Fenner's face was getting redder and redder. George began switching tack to really throw Fenner off.   
  
"Mr. Fenner, when you searched Karen Betts' handbag, looking for the gun, why did you do this behind a closed office door, instead of getting the security staff involved from the beginning?" Jo had badly not wanted George to ask this, but George being George had done exactly the opposite to what anyone might have wished.   
  
"I didn't want Karen Betts to take the wrap for it." In the public gallery, Yvonne was so incensed by this totally untrue reply that she couldn't help shouting,   
  
"You lying bastard!" Karen put out a hand almost as if to restrain Yvonne, and found her hand being squeezed by Yvonne's, clearly in an attempt to rein in her anger. John couldn't help but smile.   
  
"Mrs. Atkins, this is neither the grand stand at Asscott nor the floor of the stock exchange." Suitably mollified, Yvonne stayed quiet. Karen's and Yvonne's hands remained clasped, neither of them wanting to relinquish the moral support of the other.   
  
"I find myself agreeing with Mrs. Atkins," Continued George. "After you very unwisely informed the defense yesterday of the allegation made towards you by Karen Betts, I have since discovered that this was not the first allegation of this kind to be made against you. It is for the jury to decide, on listening to this witness, a man who claims to be a hardworking prison officer, who has had numerous allegations of sexual assault against colleagues and relationships with inmates, if a single word that comes out of his mouth can be trusted. I would like to further direct the jury to a newspaper cutting, 6B in your bundle My Lord, in which Principle Officer Fenner and a number of his male colleagues were declared by a journalist to be on a porn fest weekend in Amsterdam. Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, is this really the kind of man whose word can be trusted on issues such as friendliness with female inmates? I don't think so. No further questions, My Lord."   
  
"Not that you've actually asked very many, Ms Channing, and I ought to remind you that it is normal practice for a barrister to ask questions, not to give a speech for the opposing witness. Do you wish to re-examine, Mrs. Mills?"   
  
"I have just one question, My Lord. Mr. Fenner, what did snowball Merriman say to you when you questioned her decision not to remain in volentary segregation?"   
  
"She put on that phoney accent again and said, the show must go on, Mr. Fenner."   
  
"No Further questions, My Lord," Said Jo, finally feeling that although George had given Fenner a real run for his money, she had just about held on to him as a credible witness by the skin of her teeth. Deed intoned,   
  
"Court will adjourn until after lunch, resuming at two o'clock."   
  
In the public gallery, Karen and Yvonne untwined their hands, both feeling a little selfconscious at doing such a thing in the first place. The action had, however, not gone unnoticed by Cassie who filed it away as a useful piece of information to examine later. As they filed out of the court, Karen saw Jo and went over to speak to her.   
  
"Well done," She said.   
  
"I don't know that I achieved all that much," Replied Jo.   
  
"You both gave Fenner a run for his money, and that's a plus any day," Said Karen, meaning it. Jo felt a twinge of real sorrow for what Fenner must have put Karen through.   
  
"I think I ended up being hostile to my own witness," She said.   
  
"With Fenner, that's never difficult."   
  
"John told me," Said Jo, not needing to specify what she was talking about.   
  
"I thought as much," Replied Karen.   
  
"If you ever think of putting together a case against him, don't hesitate to call me."   
  
"Thank you. Much as I hate the idea of the defense having any success in this case, whoever has replaced Brian Cantwell really riled him." Jo laughed.   
  
"Oh, that's George's role in life, to play with men. She either dangles them from a fingernail or tramples on those that get in her way."   
  
"You know her then?" Asked Karen in slight amusement.   
  
"She's John's ex-wife, so yes, our paths do cross occasionally."   
  
"I bet that's nice and cosy?" Commented Yvonne, coming up behind them and catching the end of the conversation.   
  
"You could say that," Said Jo with a grimmace. Then turning to Karen she added, "Remember what I said, I'd be only too pleased to help you nail that insult to humanity."   
  
"I'll bare it in mind," Said Karen, wondering if one day she really could get as far as putting Fenner out of action for good. 


	22. Part Twenty Two

Part Twenty Two   
  
Neil Grayling woke up especially early on Wednesday morning as this was the day he was due to perform at the trial of that Atkins youth and the Merriman prisoner. He had always been fastidious at the best of times and when he was with Hannah, he wore out her patience when they used to go to town shopping for clothes. Hannah had been used to past boyfriends whose boredom was visible after ten minutes of her drifting round the likes of Harvey Nicholls . It was a novel experience, when she first dated Neil, that he delivered an unusually expert opinion of what clothes suited her, and not a pale reflection of her well defined ideas on power dressing. It was only later that her feelings of satisfaction of her spot of retail therapy habitually descended into dread at accompanying Neil in his choice of suits. To her, all suits looked the same apart from colour. Why he was so obsessed about the particular suit he chose was something she felt she would never understand, the endless minute calculations of the cut of the jacket, the way it hung on him, the line of the pockets, the match of the shirt?   
  
"I've got to look the part, Hannah, as Governing Governor." he would always say.  
  
She knew he was lying. The sheer obsessive narcissistic quality of the man was something there for its own sake, not some onerous duty that he reluctantly shouldered.  
  
Later on, when the sexual contact with Neil gradually fizzled away to the solitary, unapproachable shape on the far side of the wide double bed, she wondered what situation she had got herself into.   
  
Of course, when she came home deliberately early one afternoon, she quietly unlocked the door and tiptoed quietly up the fresh varnished teak open staircase and peeped round the door, it wasn't some woman that was wrapped up in his arms……..  
  
It was long years of training for the law that developed Jo Mills's protective shell of professionalism. This enabled her to assess, with her expert eye, the strength of a witness's evidence like some structural engineer as to how far they will support the complex logical structures that the stresses and strains of cross-examination will place on them. Normally, she pushed to the back of her mind the idea of whether she liked or disliked the individuals.   
  
"You can't shut out how you feel about people, Mum," her son Mark had said to her once in his down to earth way." Or you couldn't be as good a Mum as you are."   
  
Jo Mills's face broke into a smile at that one showing her very real love for him even though it was a distant relationship with him at public school. Where other parents were tearing their hair out over problem teenagers, Mark was there with his unique way of cutting a swathe through the complexities of the matter.  
  
"What would I do without you, Mark." Her normally curiously formal speaking voice let down the defences as much as her wide-open soulful smile.  
  
"Well, you could always give me some money, Mum." Mark smiled in his most winning way.   
  
So you think yourself the incisive fearless wielder of the power of the spoken word, do you, Jo thought to herself and she never saw that one coming. She slipped her hand inside her handbag and pulled out a couple of notes. This is what mums round the world are there for in the eyes of their teenage children.  
  
The slim shape of the professional woman, the 'other Jo Mills' was dressed for the occasion in the sleekly cut black gown which never succeeded in detracting from her slim upright figure. She somehow looked younger than her years with her short curly blond hair which was slightly at odds with her formal, low pitched voice which carried through the vastness of the court room. On her head was perched the white wig, the ancient emblem of her ancient profession giving her the air of a schoolmistress, precisely the sort of visual impact that Neil Grayling took instant dislike to. Being gay didn't stop him from being a male chauvinist, no matter what liberal sounding buzzwords came insincerely from his mouth.  
  
Up in the gallery, Cassie, Roisin, Karen Yvonne and Lauren occupied the front row, already feeling accustomed to the rhythm of the court. Lauren was doing a last minute adjustment to her makeup but to her total fury, her pocket mirror picked out the black coloured, black hearted shape of Fenner, several rows back. Her fingers fumbled to ram the little mirror back in to her bag but her out of control fingers yanked wildly at the zip and broke it.  
  
"Hey, Lauren,"Yvonne called out."That's your best bag."  
  
Lauren didn't answer. It was as if her fingers were pulling up an invisible zip on Fenner's coat, right up to the throat and to choke off his windpipe with a fevered strength that she never knew she possessed. Yvonne's words"I want him out of the picture for good," rang in her ears and repeated itself like a stuck record so that her mind missed out on half the proceedings.   
  
"Mr Grayling," Jo opened the proceedings. "Can you describe your present job at Larkhall Prison, what it involves and how long you have been doing it."  
  
Grayling gritted his teeth to hear himself pinned down so quickly in words of one syllable when he liked to keep things vague.  
  
"You ask me a difficult question, madam, but, briefly, I am Governing Governor at Larkhall and I have been, so to speak, 'at the helm' for about eighteen months. I am in overall charge of all the prison wings at Larkhall and I take it upon myself to give direction and leadership in these difficult times." finished Grayling, visibly beginning to inflate himself in his own self-importance.  
  
"Mr Grayling, can I ask you did you make the decision to make up Snowball Merriman to a redband and if you didn't, who made the decision?"  
  
"It wasn't me," Grayling said shortly. "It was Jim Fenner."   
  
"You are absolutely positive on this, Mr Grayling." Jo Mills asked to underline her point.  
  
"Definitely so," came the reply.  
  
"And, in amongst your various duties, who made the decision to organise the 'Open Day' the event when, tragically, the fire took place and Sharon Wiley was killed."   
  
"It was me that made that decision," Grayling jumped in straightaway and, more hesitantly, carried on." That is, without the faintest idea that such a tragic set of circumstances could happen."  
  
Jo's white smile had a superficial air of good humour while, in reality, she felt a growing contempt for this buck passer and double dealer from direct impressions alone.  
  
"Mr Grayling, can you confirm that, some time before the fire, Miss Betts came to see you to advise you that she had started a relationship with the defendant, Ritchie Atkins, and that you sanctioned it. I repeat your own words to her. "If you want me to slap your wrists for fancying a younger man, I won't do it. If you want me to tell you not to see an Atkins, I can't do it." This was a decision that you made, quite understandably not knowing the plot that the defendants were hatching at the time." Jo Mills spoke carefully and deliberately, watching Grayling flinch at the ghastly inappropriateness of the advice in retrospect and   
  
working hard to prevent Grayling's real fear of 'losing face' in public taking control so that he would turn and run.  
  
"Yes," Grayling half muttered, half hissed.  
  
"At the time, knowing only what you knew then, what was the reasoning behind your judgement, Mr Grayling." Jo Mills asked him, continuing to massage his ego.  
  
"I was informed that Ritchie Atkins had lived abroad as he wanted nothing to do with the family business," Grayling answered, breathing heavily but with more confidence. This decision had weighed heavily on his mind and his sole driving force was to publically justify himself in a court of law so that Area would not come to him if they wanted a scapegoat. This was the one reason he agreed to testify in court." As far as I was concerned, there was nothing on Ritchie Atkins record and, as I said at the time, a prison officer is entitled to a private life so long as it did not conflict with his job." Grayling finished on an increasingly loud confident note, glancing up at Sir Ian and Lawrence James who both nodded in approval.  
  
"How much were you involved in the practical organisation of the Open Day, both before and during the course of the day. Mr Grayling?" Jo carried on, cynically noticing his periodic glances upward at the gallery.   
  
"The practical day to day organisation………let me see," Grayling said reflectively, buying time to search his memory."Mr Fenner, my Principal Officer, did a very successful talk at the local Masonic Lodge to whip up interest in the 'adopt a prisoner' scheme which I thought up. Karen Betts, the Wing Governor, was responsible for security, practical arrangements, including a 'rap song' performed by three prisoners, and an exhibition laid on by the prisoners in the library." and here Grayling closed his eyes momentarily at the embarrassment of the 3 Julies' rap protest ruffling a few feathers." I did the announcements, the publicity bit and general 'public relations."   
  
Cassie and Roisin both grinned at the memory of the blunt home truths they laid on the visitors about women in prison and the latest brainchild of some arse licker in Whitehall, locking up children with their mothers. Karen looked scornfully at this pathetic monument of combined ineffectiveness and self aggrandisement. Her keen ears picked up the reference to 'my Principal Officer' and 'the Wing Governor' which told her everything about Grayling.  
  
"And where were you when the explosion happened, Mr Grayling." Jo Mills cut to the chase, fearing to inflict unnecessary sufferings on the jury with yet more commercials for Grayling.   
  
"I had gone back to where the prisoners were in the library where the exhibition was held to escort them out to the gardens as the visitors were starting to move in that direction already, to come outside into the garden on the next part of the guided tour. I was about half way along the corridor when the bomb went off. I can't remember anything more after that." Grayling finished in a hesitant dazed fashion, being the first time he had been dragged back in his mind to the events of that terrible day.   
  
"If I might come in here at this point, my lord," George's loud brittle voice barged in,"I can't see what earthly use this witness can possibly be in these proceedings. My taxes are being paid to subsidise this bumbling witness to waste valuable court time."  
  
Jo Mills was hit by a violent cross current of feelings. On the one hand, George's description of Grayling was her feelings exactly but on the other hand, she wasn't going to let this brash, high class bitch push her around and take over the court. The fact that she had been once married to John Deed was nothing that her legally trained mind would, for one second, let interfere with her legal judgement.  
  
"Ms Channing, your excellent memory would not have forgotten this morning's charade and I would again remind you that you would do well to realise that I decide what limits I allow a council in their cross examination, not you. Nevertheless I would ask you, Mrs Mills, to explain to the court the point to where your examination of the witness is leading."  
  
Jo nodded in the direction of John Deed and totally ignored George Channing who was fuming under her breath at John Deed's clever ploy in exploiting her vanity to shut her up.  
  
"If the exhibition was held in the library, can you state whether or not the library books and racks were still in the library and, if not, where they had been moved to?"  
  
"I really wasn't involved in that as I was busy with other, higher matters." Grayling stammered slightly, glancing up at the lowering storm clouds of Sir Ian and Lawrence James piled high right at the back of the gallery."I cannot remember any library books where the exhibition was."  
  
"So presumably they were in the nearest place to the library." Jo Mills almost sighed as she spoke, feeling like a determined dentist extracting a tooth from a patient, bent on backing away from her."Which would be the corridor."  
  
"Yes," Grayling spoke, feeling torn between his own pride and the glares from his friends, literally 'on high.'  
  
."Mr Grayling, you have explained to the court that, at the time that the bomb exploded, you were the only person in authority at Larkhall present at the scene. Can you describe for the benefit of the court the exact appearance of the corridor as far as you can do so? Take your time as I know that this is associated with painful memories." Jo finished in a gentler note than she had planned to.   
  
"As far as I can remember, there were metal racks on either side of the corridor piled high with books."  
  
"Would you say that they were in any discernable order?"  
  
"I only glanced for a second but they didn't seem to be in any particular order. Of course, I'm not a librarian." Grayling smiled tightly.  
  
"No, only a nobbing Prison Governor," Cassie muttered derisively under her breath, scornful of this bumbling fool who wouldn't last five minutes in the job she now did.  
  
"The bastard," Karen fumed quietly. "He's trying to sabotage the trial. Even he isn't this useless. Take my word for it." Karen assured them seeing himself conduct himself worse in court than her newest Prison Officer. Lauren said nothing, her anger still at boiling point but an Atkins can bottle it up when it was needed  
  
"My lord," George Channing's loud voice threatened to vibrate the overhead lights in the domed roof." Must the court endure this interminable and purposeless cross examination," she finished with an affected yawn.  
  
"Ms Channing, you must learn that patience is a virtue which all of us acquire in time, some later than others."John Deed's voice rolled out smoothly with a very meaning look in George's direction. Concern for her fellow human beings is hardly a charge George Channing can be accused of, he nearly said.   
  
"Let us get to the point, Mr Grayling. As an average human being although a layman in library matters, seeing that the Larkhall library would have to be reconstituted after the open day, would you say that from your observations, that would be an easy matter or an extremely difficult matter." Jo Mills spoke sharply and precisely, her manner calling Mr Grayling to order.  
  
"A difficult matter," Mr Grayling had to admit.  
  
George Channing was instantly up on her feet like a hound let off the leash. The stage was hers and she was sure she could wipe the floor with Miss Oxfam's witness.   
  
"Mr Grayling," George Channing's loud commanding, stern, almost nannyinsh voice reminded Grayling why he hated dominant women."You have testified to the court that, while you are a glittering ornament decorating Larkhall Prison, practically, you are everywhere and at the same time nowhere at all. I ask you to explain to the court what practical use your evidence is at all. I can't see anything of any substance." George Channing finished with a mocking laugh.  
  
"Objection, my Lord," Jo Mill's professionalism sprung to the fore." Whatever court my learned colleague has practiced in before, she should know not to badger the witnesses in this outrageous fashion."  
  
"My thoughts exactly," John Deed's melodious voice concealed the feeling of horror and incredulity that the habitual verbal crossfire between his ex wife and his girlfriend was carried into his working life as a judge ruling between two opposing councils. "You know very well, George Channing, my ability to employ the ultimate sanction within my powers on a council who consistently steps over the line as to what is permitted in cross examination. I have used this sanction once before, or so you will have heard and I am very close to imposing this sanction right now."  
  
George Channing reacted as if an ice cold bucketful of water was thrown in her face. She coloured and swallowed and briefly returned to her papers while she collected her wits.  
  
"How the bleeding hell did the judge knock the stuffing out of that posh bitch?" Yvonne whispered out of the corner of her mouth to an equally curious Karen. Karen had had an insight into the very real human being that was John Deed without the judge's robes and was intrigued that a small amount of force of personality could shut up that irritating woman so quickly. Just what was the 'ultimate sanction' and why did that cow crumple up so easily?   
  
Sir Ian Rochester and Lawrence James scowled impotently at John Deed as they knew full well that John Deed was perfectly capable of carrying out this threat. At the same time, they were beginning to wonder if they had done the right thing in agreeing to Georgia Channing taking the place of Brian Cantwell in so delicate a trial. Full marks for enthusiasm but five out of ten for judgement, Sir Ian reflected. He looked down at the solitary figure of Fenner a few rows down in the gallery and searched his memory. Was he the prison officer that Neil phoned him up about to ask him to help get him off the hook over some rape case? The man looks harmless enough.   
  
"I beg your pardon, my lord." George Channing rather venomous apology fought its way out of her mouth. It was the nice fat barrister's fee and the vision of the luxury apartment in the Algarve which tipped the balance.   
  
"Mr Grayling, may I ask you what happened to the revolver that was originally discovered at the time of the explosion and when it came to light at the time of Ritchie's accident?"  
  
"Regrettably, I cannot answer the question," Grayling replied, looking distinctly shifty on the one occasion that the man was giving a straight answer.  
  
"Cannot or will not." George's sharp tones cut in.  
  
"I ought to explain that for several weeks, I was off work sick as I was badly injured in the explosion. When I came back to work, the police had already combed Larkhall prison from top to bottom but there was no trace of the gun. Where it was concealed, I really don't know."  
  
"It doesn't say much for the standard of security at Larkhall that such a large solid object could remain hidden for all those weeks." George's little dig was in a more muted tone than even she was used to.   
  
"What can I do," Grayling replied, spreading his hands." There's nothing more that I can say."  
  
"My lord, I think that this line of investigation is going nowhere apart from straining the patience of the jury in a case complicated enough already." Jo Mills smoothly intervened, stealing one of George's favourite gambits much to her annoyance.  
  
"I agree, Mrs Mills.Ms Channing, will you please continue with the remainder of your case."  
  
George Channing went red in the face at the damned impertinence of that Mills woman and her spineless boyfriend who used to share the same name and bed, God help her.  
  
"Mr Grayling," George's aristocratic languid deadly tones psychologically dangled Grayling from two sharp edged elongated painted fingernails, "aside from the long list of decisions you don't make, and practical qualities you don't possess, can you explain your treatment of the defendant, a high security prisoner from when she arrived in Larkhall. In particular can you explain why you saw fit to delegate the sentence plan to Mr Fenner, a mere Principal Officer to a prisoner who, but for the extradition hearing that would have seen the defendant sentenced to death by the electric chair in the state of Florida, This same officer is the same one whose reticence at claiming the credit for his enlightened sentence plan of librarian makes his evidence not altogether to be trusted any more than your judgement."  
  
Grayling looked blankly in front of him at this demonic woman with the ability to twist words and actions in front of his very eyes, that two plus two equal five once she cast her spell.  
  
"I beg your pardon." Grayling asked, his mouth in freeform talk disconnected from his shut down brain."I didn't quite follow what you were getting at."  
  
"Mr Grayling," George switched to irritated bossy mode," In plain simple English, why did you allow a Principal Officer to decide Snowball Merriman's sentence plan."  
  
"I allowed Mr Fenner to decide this as he was an experienced prison officer who, until recently, was promoted to wing Governor. He knew the job." Grayling finished, sheer panic driving all the contrived managementspeak out of his brain in his last words.  
  
"My lord, again I would question the point of this line of examination. That a mistake or mistakes were made in the handling of the defendant, a very scheming female prisoner, is something the prosecution would not seek to deny. These merely gave the opportunity for her to carry out her plan. I find myself in the curious position of actually agreeing with my learned council in her description of the defendant." Jo interposed firmly with a final sarcastic twist ,much to George's seething bottled up anger.  
  
"My thoughts precisely," John Deed replied smoothly, hemmed in by George's bumptious personality, rubbing salt into the wounds."Have you any more questions to put to the witness, Ms Channing?"  
  
"No" George sulked pointedly omitting John Deed's usual title. She never grovelled to this impossible infuriating man while they were married so why should she start now?  
  
"Court is adjourned till ten tomorrow." John Deed intoned.  
  
Fenner, resplendent in his best suit, accidentally bumped into George after she had come out of the ladies, having touched up her makeup and removed her gown and revealed the very low cut dress that she wore. Fenner's eyes lit up. George exuded that sort of sexual aura that Fenner found a challenge and he was sure that he could smooth things over.   
  
"Do you want to come out with me for a drink? I know a place that is very exclusive where we can smooth things over."  
  
George was looking for someone on whom she could vent her spleen and this oily man with this cockney accent was leering at her at precisely the wrong time.  
  
"You pathetic, slimy little man. Don't you know I only dine with Cabinet Ministers, not mere mortals and still less a subhuman like you."  
  
And verbally cutting Fenner to shreds, she flounced off to the nearest taxi. Had Neil Houghton known, about the incident, he would be the one person to be grateful for Fenner's existence as he took the initial brunt of George's capricious and lethal temper. 


	23. Part Twenty three

Part Twenty Three   
  
As Karen drove in through the gates of Larkhall, she found that she really didn't want to be there. She'd spent most of the last three days in Yvonne's company and she felt totally at home with her. But as for holding on to Yvonne's hand for as long as she had in court that morning, Karen really didn't know where that had come from. What had made her do it, and even more oddly what had made Yvonne do it. Karen had never been that touchy feely type, especially in public, but with Yvonne it felt almost natural. Like the other night when she'd made such a tit of herself. Karen loathed herself for revealing how weak and insecure she had the potential to be. She didn't do tears, not her. Well, not usually anyway. It was something neither Mark nor Ritchie nor any of her other brief liaisons had ever seen her do. The only one who'd really witnessed her undoing was Fenner, but then he'd been the cause of it. But she had to admit to herself that after totally letting go with Yvonne on Monday, she'd felt lighter, almost cleansed, as if her soul had been purged of some of the pain. As she strolled along the corridors to G wing, she wondered what brought her back here, day after day. Was it simply as a means to existing, or did she still have the burning need to change the system, in the same way Helen Stewart had. Locking up women for a living wasn't a satisfactory life for anyone, except maybe Jim Fenner. Then her thoughts drifted to what Jo Mills had said to her outside the court. Could she bring a case against Fenner after all this time? She didn't know if she really had the emotional energy she would need in abundance to go through with something like that. But if she succeeded, it would get him away from vulnerable women for good, or at least for ten years or so.   
  
As she let herself in to the officers' room, she was greeted by the familiar site of Di, Sylvia and the new one Selina, drinking tea and generally taking it easy. With the inmates still on afternoon lock up, this was nothing new. Di looked up in surprise,   
  
"Karen, we didn't expect to see you this week. How's everything going?"   
  
"Not too bad," Replied Karen. "I thought I'd come and see how you were all getting on without me."   
  
"No problems so far," Added Sylvia, clearly implying that they didn't need Karen as much as she liked to think they did.   
  
"Who's in court tomorrow?" Asked Karen. Di glanced over at the duty roster.   
  
"Selina's escorting Snowball and I'm escorting Al McKenzy."   
  
"It's a poor lookout when the courts start relying on the evidence of the likes of Alison McKenzy," Said Sylvia.   
  
"Yes, well, thankfully you're not in charge of the fate of criminals," Threw back Karen, "Or prisons would be even more overcrowded than they already are."   
  
"They gave you a rough ride yesterday," Commented Di, whose turn it had been to escort Snowball.   
  
"They certainly did," Said Karen dryly.   
  
"Mind you," Continued Sylvia. "Atkins definitely gave that barrister what for on Monday. You missed a treat there, Di."   
  
"So, anything happened I should know about?" Asked Karen, not wanting to stay there any longer than necessary.   
  
"No, not really," replied Sylvia. "They're all quite fired up because of the trial. Half want Merriman to get off, and the rest are threatening to do her in if she's put back in here."   
  
"Well, she's on segregation for the whole of the trial, but if she is found guilty, we might have to think about transferring her."   
  
"What do you mean if she's found guilty?" Asked Sylvia, astounded. "That bomb had her name all over it."   
  
"That's for the jury to decide, Sylvia."   
  
"British justice," muttered Sylvia, "Most cons don't know the meaning of the word." As Karen left them to it a while later, she reflected that if nothing else was certain, Sylvia's unchanging attitude towards inmates would always be so.   
  
On reaching her slightly cluttered office, Karen remembered Yvonne asking her to tell Denny to give her a ring some time this evening. Karen knew she could do better than that. She rang down to the wing and asked Di to bring Denny up to see her. It was nearly six-thirty, so Denny would be in the middle of association, and possibly not all that impressed at being summoned to see the governor. When Di showed Denny in, there was a slightly belligerent yet half worried look on Denny's face.   
  
"What've I done, Miss?" Was her immediate enquiry. After Di had left, Karen said,   
  
"Nothing, at least nothing that I know about. Yvonne would like to speak to you, and I thought it might do the two of you some good if you could talk uninterrupted."   
  
"During association?" Said Denny in utter scorn, "You've gotta be joking. The queue for the phone's about a mile long."   
  
"Which is why you can call her from here," Said Karen patiently. "Do you think twenty minutes will do you?"   
  
"Really!" Asked Denny, a broad smile transforming her face in to that of the unsuspecting child being given exactly what he or she wanted for Christmas.   
  
"Yes, really, but no forming escape plans or arranging for anything to be smuggled in, because I won't be far away." Karen picked up the phone and dialed Yvonne's number. On hearing the voice she was coming to know so well, she said,   
  
"There's someone here who can't wait to talk to you." Handing the phone to Denny, Karen first went to make herself a coffee, returning to her computer to move her way through the prison's slightly higher-tech workings. The allocating of proposed transfers, the moving around of the jigsaw pieces that represented inmates, moving some on to enhanced to provide more basic and standard cell places for new convicted or remand prisoners, all part of her daily chores. Karen was aware of Denny's voice, she could hardly be otherwise with the girl sitting on the opposite side of the desk, but from long practice Karen had learnt to tune out the actual words. Lighting two cigarettes, she handed one to Denny and pushed the ashtray between them.   
  
"Denny," Came Yvonne's voice, clearly with a smile. "How're you doing?"   
  
"Okay. I take it you want to know about Al." She said this with one eye on Karen, who was sat at the computer, half with her back to Denny.   
  
"Yeah, is she still high as a kite?"   
  
"Not since I flushed her stash, no. She weren't too happy about it though."   
  
"Does she know it was you?"   
  
"come on, man, I'm not that stupid. I think she thinks Buki knicked it."   
  
"Has she done cold turkey yet, because the last thing we need is for her to be coming down in the witness box."   
  
"She'll be fine by tomorrow. How's it going anyway?"   
  
"You'd have liked watching Fenner get some of his just desserts," Grinned Yvonne.   
  
"Wicked!" Denny giggled. "did they make mincemeat of him?"   
  
"Yeah, just a bit. Denny, listen. Tell Al for me that if she comes good in court tomorrow, I'll owe her one."   
  
"Okay. Will you bring Lauren with you next visiting?"   
  
"Yeah, I should think so."   
  
"It's just, you're my mum now, innit, which means she's my sister. It'd be nice to get to know her a bit before I come out of prison."   
  
"That's a lovely thing to say, Denny." Karen let them talk uninterrupted for another quarter of an hour. When she'd retrieved the phone from Denny, and asked her to go back to the wing, she said,   
  
"I thought you might appreciate a decent chat."   
  
"Yeah, thanks. You didn't have to let her do that."   
  
"My pleasure. Oh, and you'll be interested to know that you gave Sylvia some entertainment with your performance on Monday."   
  
"Jesus, I bet she's loving all this, isn't she?"   
  
"Probably a little too much."   
  
"So, the prosecution is half way through, and we've got Al the razor head on tomorrow. I don't think we've seen the half of it."   
  
"No, me neither. We're all going to know about it when the defense kicks off."   
  
"How're you doing, really?" At this, Karen experienced the sudden urge to cry, but did her utmost to suppress it.   
  
"I'm just about holding up, and this doesn't hit home with me anywhere near as much as it will with you."   
  
"Yes it does, just in a different way."   
  
"This might sound stupid," Said Karen, taking the bull by the horns. "But I don't think I'd be getting through this without you."   
  
"That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me in a long time," Yvonne found herself admitting. "And at the risk of having my daughter tell me what a soppy cow I am, I'll say the feeling's mutual."   
  
As Karen worked her way through the rest of her outstanding mail, a feeling of deep depression began to creep over her. The rain running down the panes of her office window wasn't helping. august weather could be more unpredictable than a wing full of hormonal women. At around nine, she switched off the computer, collected her things together and went out to her car. Driving through the still pouring rain, she decided that the only thing to do when she felt like this was to have a long soak in a hot bath, with a bottle of wine and some soft music. Purchasing an already chilled bottle of Frascati on the way home, all that remained for her to do was to put on her favourite CD and fill the bath with foamy, scented water. As she slowly worked her way down the bottle, and allowed the music and the water to ripple over her, she could gradually feel the tension flowing out of her muscles. She realised that her life was drifting these days. Ever since Ritchie, and really she supposed it was ever since Fenner, she'd only been existing, not really living. She drifted in and out of Larkhall, performing her tasks to the best of her ability, but her heart wasn't in it anymore, she knew that. But if anyone were to ask her what her heart was in, she wouldn't have any kind of an answer. Probably the only thing she continued to understand with the deepest clarity was her own body, but at times even that would deny her access to the feelings she'd been used to for so many years. She ran her hands over her well-defined figure. She knew she was still an attractive woman, and at not quite forty, she physically had a lot to offer anyone. She was only too aware that her still firm breasts grabbed the attention of men and women alike when displayed in the well-cut blouses she usually wore. She was inexorably proud of these two finest assets of her creation, with their ripe nipples just begging to be fondled and teased. As she touched herself so familiarly, she thought it was almost a pity that no other person was here to watch her little show. As one hand moved below the level of the water, and she spread her legs to accommodate it, she briefly wondered if there would ever be another one to share in her pleasure, and who that person might be. she had never felt anything akin to shame or disgust at her self-gratification, because she reasoned that the clitoris and Graffenburg's pinnacle of ecstasy could only ever have been created with the pursuit of pleasure in mind. They served no other useful, practical purpose. Her pulse quickened as she delicately coaxed her clitoris in to joining her in her body's all too basic of needs to occasionally feel that slowly increasing rhythm in the dance of erotic necessity. As she slipped three long, tapered fingers inside herself, she encountered her body's liquid-fire response to her well-skilled and by now long-practiced hand. Her hand molding itself to her body's increasing fever to reach the point where the soul is open wide and all revealing, she soared over the peak of her sexual Everest, closing her eyes to preserve her, till this point, unknown fantasy. At her point of completion, it wasn't the face of any man that appeared behind her eyes, it was the by now well-recorded face of Yvonne.   
  
When she later got out of the bath, dried off, and crawled under her duvet, she wondered if this was what her life had come to, the lusting after a woman who couldn't possibly be straighter. Was this what happened to you when you were acutely aware of James Fenner's presence in every bed you would ever again share with a man. That was why nothing had really worked with Mark afterwards. Fenner was always there, somehow between them in what should have been their own private haven. At the time, Karen liked to think that she'd managed to exorcise Fenner's influence when she'd so pathetically fallen in to Ritchie's trap of seduction and charm. But in her heart of hearts, she knew this wasn't true. What had all that with Ritchie been about, but for her to try and convince herself that neither Fenner nor what he had done, mattered to her. She'd allowed Ritchie to fuck her as forcefully as he wanted, because the more intense the physical act, the less she hoped Jim's face would continue to intrude on her sexual dealings with men. Maybe if Ritchie hadn't tried to fuck with her mind and her career as well as her body, she might have succeeded in this endeavor. But as she drifted towards a sleep tormented half by dreams of pleasure and fear, she wondered if she would ever find that erotic equilibrium with anyone, which she had for so long taken entirely for granted. 


	24. Part Twenty Four

Part Twenty Four   
  
In contrast to the cool still darkness of the Old Bailey, an atmosphere to which Cassie and Roisin were becoming accustomed, a strong chill wind was whipping down the streets as dark storm clouds like some invading army, were starting to blot out the blue sunlight from earlier on. If it weren't for the trial, Cassie and Roisin would have packed suitcases and taken Michael and Niamh to the seaside, complete with buckets and spades, like they had done last Easter break.   
  
"Get me, Miss Out Lesbian single woman doing the family holiday routine," Cassie had first thought laughing to herself as she had patiently permitted the laughing children to shovel fresh damp sand to cover up Cassie's legs and 'bury her' and build sandcastles on the 'burial mound.' In a previous lifetime, a year ago, Miss Narcissism would have shouted at any noisy kid getting in the way of her all over sun tan but Roisin coming into her life had changed all that. She still remembered the feel of her bare feet on the promenade, and the sun on her back as Niamh had reached out to hold Cassie's shapely hand in her tiny fingers. She could remember a feeling of carefree innocent tenderness as the wind whipped her tousled hair and looking sideways at Roisin brilliantly smiling back at her. At Niamh's age, she had been a spoilt sulky brat who complained when the slightest grain of sand got between her toes and loudly insisted her parents dust off her feet and put her shoes back on. Now she had revisited the childhood that she had never had and had felt free with not a care in the world.  
  
"You're Mrs Connor's friend?" the polite elderly woman at the next breakfast table asked her and Cassie smiled equally politely and said 'yes.' They talked about the weather like traditional British holiday makers always did. Again, this restraint was new to Cassie who, from her early teens, had liked to shock and outrage that very conventional middle class respectability that she was now dabbling with.  
  
At nighttime, when the children were in bed, it was a different story but the hotel was blissfully ignorant of the nights of blissful lovemaking when Cassie could savour the texture and feel of Roisin's body and eventually lie there exhausted in a tangle of sheets, her body wrapped round Roisin, feeling totally and blissfully satisfied with her lover.  
  
This August was different as the hoped for second holiday had had to be cancelled when the news of the trial came up. Roisin had originally approached Aiden to look after the children but Aiden had acted like a spoilt brat and had turned Roisin down flat.  
  
"If you think that I'm going to put myself out while you live in sin with 'that woman' (as Aiden continued to refer to Cassie) and if you want me to look after the children for you then you're mistaken. I don't care what reason it's for. Both me and my mother think that we would be aiding and abetting a sinful relationship and I stand fast to the principles that I was born into. Until the Pope himself blesses this, I won't even hear of it. You took the children away from me and now you're going to have to lie in your unclean sinful bed."  
  
"But Aiden, you're their father." Roisin pleaded to Aiden's unhearing immovable pigheaded back.   
  
Eventually Roisin had lost her temper and stalked out of the house for the very last time, driving off in a cloud of angry exhaust smoke. She realised that if Aiden was going to cut himself off from the sort of contact with his children that might have humanised him, she would have to try her mother instead. She had only tried Aiden first to give him one last chance and because he was younger and fitter than her mother. She had thought that paying child support wasn't enough until she realised that that was as far as he would ever commit himself to. Aiden had had his last chance, as the children were happier now with her and Cassie than they had been with Aiden.  
  
"I'm getting older, Roisin love," her mother's lilting voice doubtfully replied and children's ways are not really mine any more but if it will help you and Cassie, I'll do it. But Michael and Niamh will have to be on their best behaviour." her mother Mary ended firmly.   
  
"Oh God bless you, mother." Roisin's brilliant grateful smile and arms flung round her mother's neck and thanked her profusely. It struck her even though initially her mother had reservations about her relationship with Cassie, she had agreed to meet Cassie and had been won over. She was from a generation up from both her and Aiden and, on the face of it, most likely to be totally disapproving.  
  
"What my neighbours think about you and Cassie is my problem, not yours, and it isn't one anyway," she had said to Roisin. Roisin was her daughter and family came first, her mother reasoned.  
  
  
  
"You do understand, children," Cassie had explained to the two disappointed faces who had been pestering them both for where they were going on holiday. Cassie had discovered an ability that she never knew she had in delivering that sort of bad news and treating them like grown ups "Your mother and I were nearly burnt in the fire at Larkhall   
  
if she hadn't got the guts to get us to push the Governor on a trolley out of the fire. That's how we got out early and we want to help our friends."  
  
"But Gran's house is boring," Michael had complained. "She's always getting us up early and getting us to do 'jobs round the house' because it is 'good for us.' And saying grace at mealtimes."  
  
"You can't always get what you want, Michael." Niamh rebuked the younger boy. "Even if Gran is sometimes old fashioned."  
  
And Cassie, temperamentally all for the voice of rebellion, found herself to her horror echoing the sort of grown up phrases that Niamh had said and remembered she had always despised in her own mother and swore that she would never say when she got older.   
  
"Gran is very kind to look after you both. It's the only way we are sure you are looked after and loved." Roisin's gentle voice finished the matter. At least the children were won round and not just given their marching orders as Aiden used to do.   
  
  
  
There were compensations however as Cassie had topped up her suntan just nicely at Yvonne's luxurious house. She could take very much to lying on poolside recliners as a living, sipping a pina colada from Yvonne's very extensive bar, chatting to Lauren and have a break from children. Even from her experience of the high life, Yvonne's place was one to wallow in shameless luxury and was a holiday in itself. It was a pity that, with neighbours like they had, that sunbathing topless in the back garden at home was a no no as one of the inevitable compromises she recognised she was forced to make. The only thing she was careful of for the future was never to go out on a pub crawl with Lauren as she knew that Lauren could drink her under the table. She remembered waking up in Lauren's bed with a very painful hangover that split her skull the next day the last time she did that. Lauren was very kind to keep everyone away from her room and give her a chance of sleeping it all off.  
  
In the past, Cassie was the ultimate 'life is a non stop party' woman. That had changed as she had with responsibility. However, in the rare moments when that responsibility had been taken off her shoulders, that same zest for life was still there, all the more precious as the time to indulge that side of her was strictly limited these days.   
  
"You know, Roisin, I can still remember lying in a drunken stupor in Lauren's bed, I was thinking we were still sharing a cell at Larkhall and Karen Betts was shouting for lights out." Cassie was explaining as Roisin expertly diced the carrots and onions for a spaghetti bolognese. "Couldn't we have a takeaway pizza?" Cassie whined pathetically ."I'm hungry."  
  
"What, and have you go on and on the next day about getting fat, Cassie Tyler."Roisin laughed."I'd get more Catholic guilt from you than a whole churchful of confessions about 'if only I hadn't eaten that pizza and my clothes don't fit.' You with your skinny body as well. If you want to show off at Yvonne's swimming pool, you'll have to not give in to sin and human weakness" Roisin said playfully.  
  
"That reminds me of Karen Betts," Cassie said, smirking. "Sin and human weakness."  
  
"And just what do you mean by that remark, Cassie Tyler. I know that you couldn't take your eyes off her." Roisin said a little warily.  
  
"That is me just admiring the female body as always" Cassie smiled smugly and disarmingly."It's just that I think that there is a little something going on between her and Yvonne, with all that hand holding in court."   
  
"I can't believe that, Cassie."Roisin answered disbelievingly."Karen Betts was stopping Yvonne from saying something she would later regret.in any case, Karen Betts is just a….just a ……."  
  
"Normal straight woman,"Cassie teasingly helped her to finish the sentence. "You used to be one yourself , Roisin. I must admit when we started working together you kept up a pretty good act for a long time…….right up till the first time we made love." Cassie finished with a wicked smile.  
  
Roisin shook her head, trying to get her head round this one. She could still remember Yvonne's incredulous look when, long ago in Larkhall, she told Yvonne that Cassie fancied her.  
  
"This affects me, how?" Yvonne had said with total incomprehension. Yvonne Atkins has a reputation of not only being straight but flaunting it as well. As for Karen Betts, her personal life was a closed book. All she knew of her was that she had a son, that she used to live with Fenner and, in court, it came out that she had a relationship with Ritchie Atkins. Surely the woman was straight, for God's sake. They were just being friendly.   
  
"You mark my words, Roisin Connor, Karen Betts and Yvonne Atkins will be shagging before long….even if they don't know it. All the signs are there."  
  
  
  
Fenner glugged a stiff shot of whisky straight from the bottle that he bought from the takeaway. He needed that to get over the day's events. It had been an up and a down day.   
  
He wasn't sure who he hated most, Merriman for making such a total fool out of him, Atkins for being Atkins and threatening him, that barrister bitch for taking the piss out of him and, far worse, in throwing his well meaning offer in his face as if he intended to rape her, for God's sake. Still he'd seen that shitstabber Grayling squirm and look a total tit and that was worth something. He did feel a bit uncomfortable to see that Atkins daughter glare at him so much, can't think why as he'd done nothing to harm her. Still, his fun was over, it was back to work covering for Betts who's still swanning around at the Old Bailey while the rest of the lads are slaving away.   
  
It's back to normal tomorrow as his contact with the trial is going to be second hand from what he hears from Di Barking and Sylvia who'll see all the fun. Atkins and Merriman will be banged up for life if good Old British Justice takes its course. He'll look forward to laughing at Merriman every day of her jail sentence, whimpering over lover boy in his wheelchair far away from her. Some male nick will have the Godmother and that vicious daughter of hers causing all sorts of trouble on visiting day and not Larkhall.   
  
Anyway, looks like his lovelife is looking up what with that new Prison Officer Selina. He could do with a regular bird he can shag on the inside when it suits him. She's a good listener and seems to be taking in his chat up line and, as someone new to the job, she needs an old hand to guide her and enable her to feel her feet. He'll help her sort out with her problems in dealing with that dyke bitch Yates and help bring her to heel.  
  
All in all, Fenner figured out that he'd been taking too many chances recently and that he'd been gambling with danger too much. All he wants is a quiet life, to finally get his suit and let things lick over nice and easy. Life in a women's nick can be a nice comfy routine like it used to be for years . Let the psycho bitches like Dockley and Atkins piss off elsewhere and allow him to enjoy the good life.  
  
John Deed reeled back to his chambers and fumbled his way round the little bureau in the corner. He ripped two Paracetamol and Codeine tablets out of the packet and gulped them down with a double measure of sherry, popped a Schubert cassette on and slumped into a recliner. All this was done with a desperate need for the combined 'calm down' remedies that he knew of in one concentrated dose. That was enough to tell him that he was set to preside over an exhausting trial. Normally after a day in the court, he was content to employ just one of these measures, certainly not all of them in one go. It took fairly soon for the thumping headache to gradually fade away and his posture, lying far back and staring at the dim light helped him to struggle upwards towards the light like a diver, deep down in the dark waters. It was that impossible infuriating woman George and her continual interruptions that caused it all. Why in heaven had the Fates chosen to play a malicious practical joke on him and steer her into his professional life? Hadn't she got some lucrative commercial case to engage her lust for money than this case? In the end, the soothing strains of the Schubert piece calmed his nerves, the solo violin, dancing its way across the musical scales like a fly performing aerobatics over a sunlit river bank in the brilliant sunlight. John Deed's breathing became slow and even and serene. Just how he would be at the end of the week, he could not even begin to imagine. 


	25. Part Twenty Five

Part Twenty Five   
  
When Karen arrived at court the next morning, half of her really didn't want to see Yvonne. Karen couldn't believe she'd thought of Yvonne in the way she had. She must be going more mad than she'd first supposed if lusting after one of the straightest women she knew was now one of her pastimes. She wasn't at all sure how she really felt about Yvonne, she just knew that she'd found the thought of her appealing last night. After all, a one moment fantasy didn't mean that she'd feel the same in the cold light of day, now did it. But when she walked in to the front row of the public gallery and sat down in the space next to Yvonne, all thoughts of her forgetting about the previous night's revelations went straight out the window.   
  
"You okay?" Asked Yvonne, looking at the shadows under Karen's eyes.   
  
"I didn't sleep particularly well," Said Karen, thinking that this was the lamest excuse she'd ever heard. Yvonne seemed to sense that Karen wasn't being entirely straight with her, and scrutinized her face.   
  
"I hope McKenzy's managed to stay off the crack," Karen said, trying to change the subject.   
  
"Denny said she'd managed to get rid of it, so she should be fine," Replied Yvonne.   
  
When Al was led in to the witness box, she looked over at Snowball and gave her a death glare Yvonne herself would have been proud of. She put her hand on the bible and said,   
  
"I swear by all mighty god to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." First time in her life, thought Yvonne. But she could see that Al was alert, bright-eyed and of all things angry. Jo moved forward.   
  
"Miss McKenzy. Please would you tell the court about your first contact with the defendant, Snowball Merriman."   
  
"It wasn't long after she'd arrived. I asked her where the hell she got a name like Snowball, and she said it was better than Tracy."   
  
"And how did she behave towards you?"   
  
"She was nice." Here, Al looked over at Snowball. "She took me for a complete tit. She thought she could sweeten me up by getting drugs sent in."   
  
"Did she ever disclose her source to you?"   
  
"No way. She just said she had a good supplier on the outside."   
  
"How good an actress did she appear to you?" George stood up and approached the judge's bench.   
  
"My Lord, my witness's skill as an actress is hardly relevant."   
  
"My Lord," Put in Jo, "I argue that it is extremely relevant. Half the prosecution's case is built on the fact that Tracy Pilkinton is so adept at playing a role, that she was able to fit any character she needed to be in order to ascertain her goal."   
  
"Very eloquently put Mrs. Mills. I will allow it, so please sit down, Ms Channing." Remembering her failure with Fenner of yesterday, George bit back a retort. Jo moved back to stand in front of Al.   
  
"May I ask you again, how successful an actress did you perceive the defendant to be?"   
  
"When she first came to Larkhall, she had this really sexy American accent. That's probably how she reeled us all in, Jim Fenner included."   
  
"I think Denny's been doing a little coaching behind the scenes," muttered Yvonne, vowing to put some money in to Al's personal spends for this.   
  
"But when we found out she'd only starred in porn movies," continued Al, "She gave us this sob story about how crap her childhood was, as if she was the only one that had happened too."   
  
"Now, please could you tell the court about the incident with the radio alarm clock."   
  
"Snowball said that Atkins' radio was disturbing her beauty sleep. She asked me to steal it for her."   
  
"Can you remember her exact words?"   
  
"I think she said, can you just go fetch it to me in the library."   
  
"Did you have any idea at the time why she wanted you to bring it to her in the library?"   
  
"I just thought it was because that's where she was at the time. Seems I was wrong."   
  
"My Lord, I have submitted the remains of the radio alarm clock which were found at the scene of the explosion." Jo walked to the evidence bench and picked up something in a sealed evidence bag. "6A my Lord." Then Jo returned to Al. "Would you tell the court exactly what took place on the day of the explosion?"   
  
"We'd set up all the stalls for the open day in the art room. But someone wrote some graffiti on the wall, so the officers made us move the stalls in to the library."   
  
"What was Snowball Merriman's reaction to this?"   
  
"It scared the shit out of her." With any other witness, John would have reminded them where they were and asked them to moderate their language, but with Alison McKenzy, he could see that this was simply the way she spoke, and no official setting would ever change that. "She told me to quit bugging her," Continued Al. "I helped her move all the books in to the corridor. She was really weird. First she insisted that they had to be in alphabetical order, but when I asked her if S came after or before T, she just told me to put them anywhere."   
  
"My Lord," Jo announced, "I will be submitting the remains of two books that were recovered from the scene, both baring traces of plastic explosives and both funnily enough by Anthony Trollope. I would like to suggest that Snowball Merriman's negative response to anyone going near to the books beginning with t, was because she didn't want the presence of the explosives to be discovered. I have no further questions, My Lord."   
  
George moved forward with the kind of gleam in her eye that nowadays made Jo worry.   
  
"Miss McKenzy," George began, as if loathing the fact that she had to address a con so formally. "Are you a drug user?"   
  
"Aye, sometimes," Said Al.   
  
"And are you currently suffering from the effects of using drugs?"   
  
"No."   
  
"Please forgive me if I don't believe you," Said George scathingly.   
  
"You can believe what you like," Said Al beginning to get riled. "I was piss tested clean this morning."   
  
"Go girl," muttered Cassie in the public gallery. George looked slightly ill at ease with the turn of the conversation. Jo looked over at John and could see a little twinkle in his eye. George walked over to the evidence bench and picked up the bag containing the remains of the radio.   
  
"Is this the remains of the radio you stole from Yvonne Atkins' cell?" She asked Al.   
  
"Aye," Said Al, knowing how much she'd managed to wind this woman up.   
  
"But are you absolutely certain that it was this radio?" persisted George.   
  
"How can I be?" Threw back Al, "It was burned to shit."   
  
"Quite," Replied George. "So, this might not be the radio you stole for Snowball Merriman at all."   
  
"It must be," Persisted Al, "I stole the radio for her and took it to her in the library. Then, a radio turns up as part of the bomb that she made. It stands to reason it's that radio." Yvonne briefly thought that this was the most articulate she'd ever seen the razor head.   
  
"Are you sure you had no prior knowledge of the explosion?" asked George, trying to goad Al in to slipping up. "Are you absolutely certain that you didn't help my client in any way? She was fascinating to you, wasn't she? You couldn't do enough for her when she first arrived in Larkhall."   
  
"How fucking thick are you?" shouted Al, really furious now. "I was nearly burned to death in that evil shit's little firework display. Do you really think I'd have helped her make the bomb, and stayed around to get blasted by it."   
  
"My Lord," said George clearly affronted, "Are you not going to caution this witness as to her behaviour in this court?"   
  
"Do you have any further questions, Ms Channing?" Asked Deed.   
  
"No, My Lord. But...."   
  
"Court is adjourned till after lunch," called Deed, rising and sweeping out of the door behind the judge's bench. Al stood, almost stunned by the fact that the judge hadn't cautioned her. She knew she'd gone a bit overboard with that barrister, but she hated barristers. They refused to talk her language, and couldn't bring themselves to treat her like an ordinary witness. She looked up to the gallery, where she could see Yvonne Atkins, Cassie Tyler and Roisin Connor. Yvonne grinned at her and gave her the thumbs up. Denny had promised her the night before that Yvonne would come good if she played her part in court. Al hoped for Denny's sake this was true.   
  
"I think we owe it to Al to go and raise a glass to her somewhere," Said Yvonne. "Only she would say something like that to a QC and get away with it." As they moved out in to the sunshine, Karen began to feel more relaxed. Al McKenzy had done well for them this morning, and Karen thought it would be well worth a move up on to enhanced for her. When they went inside a nearby pub, Karen realised that she couldn't simply banish the feelings she clearly had for Yvonne. She might have to hide them, keeping them away from any unsuspecting eyes, but some day she would have to bring them out and examine them. Yvonne had clearly made a promise to Al, to persuade her to do them proud in court, and Yvonne wasn't one to go back on her promises. Was this what she admired? Karen wasn't sure. She thought it was a combination of her commitment to people, her compassion for those worse off than herself, and by no means least, her ability to make Karen laugh. 


	26. Part Twenty Six

Part Twenty Six   
  
"Last round, everybody," Karen called out to the others."We've got twenty minutes before the start of court."  
  
Yvonne, Lauren, Cassie and Roisin naturally accepted Karen's easy authority, as she was the organised one. With a few too many drinks inside her, Roisin tended to cuddle up close to Cassie, no matter what the company while, in turn, Cassie became the life and soul of the party with a very defective internal clock. Lauren and Yvonne had been preoccupied in dissecting the faults of the piss artists who propped up the bar and had let that conversation carry them away. Karen could engage in a couple of conversations at the same time but her instinct of time never let her down.   
  
She and Yvonne had been reminiscing about what could almost be called the 'good old days' at Larkhall as time and alcohol had blurred the hard edges leaving the funnier moments in sharp focus.   
  
"So you're the one who planned the Larkhall Tabernackle Choir, Yvonne?" Karen laughed."Helen Stewart bent my ear about that one when I first came to Larkhall telling me that you were someone that needed watching. And she was right."   
  
Yvonne warmed to Karen's free and easy laugh at that golden moment and the look in her eye.  
  
It might as well be a Christmas social with the POs, Karen thought, except that she was in much more enjoyable company. At these socials, with the heavy preponderance of men, inevitably the conversation turned towards football. Karen had developed the art to a nicety in making minimal contributions to such conversations to not reveal her total ignorance of the game and had persuaded herself that what she was doing was worthwhile to grease the wheels of the engine of sociability that kept the Prison Officers united. It was her job.  
  
This was a much different situation here that she actively sparkled and thrived in the pleasure of a lively five-way conversation. She was in a conversation of equals with each woman lending her coloration to the warm glow of the collective company.  
  
"OK Karen, since you're in charge," Yvonne called out, raising her glass in the air. "As you're buying, then it's a vodka and lemonade."   
  
"Same for me, Karen." A slightly drunken Cassie temporarily detached herself from Roisin's arm round her. "Come on, I'll give you a hand."  
  
Karen smiled, conscious that the grey downward slide on her own into the depression and loneliness of the night before was banished into the unwanted past by present good company all around her. As she delicately perched two glasses between her fingers with a practiced hold, Yvonne's smile caught her eye and she knew that she shared that feeling of contentment. Cassie carried the two drinks back to the table where her knees bumped up against Roisin's and they curled themselves round each other again. Lauren rather pointedly looked the other way as, being on the outside of Larkhall, all this was new to her except from that night she drank Cassie under the table at some gay bar or other and had to carry a legless woman home. However, she'd done that before many a time on a 'girl's night out' so what else was new?  
  
"Ain't they sweet, Karen?" Yvonne asked with a twinkle in her eye. She was referring to Cassie and Roisin who were now oblivious to everything.  
  
Karen nodded and smiled at this point as the vision of Yvonne last night came back into her mind.And it wasn't the background pub noises and any forced conviviality that made the lunchtime very special for her.  
  
"Come on, lets get moving, everyone." Karen smiled.  
  
The sounds of their heels clattered along the stone flagged foyer, and they smiled at Jo Mills in passing as she prepared for an apparently uneventful afternoon, cross examining a minor witness. They took the left hand turn, up the ancient mahogany flight of stairs, past a couple of spare rooms and waited for the theatrics to begin.  
  
"Mr Ajit Khan, can you describe your present occupation."She addressed the very tall man with smooth manners. Despite his name, his accent blended in amongst the Middle England tones of his clientele and his complexion was only a shade darker than the average salesman in the area was. His smooth cut suit was as suave as his manners.  
  
"I work self employed installing household home security. This involves installing an electrical alarm system which is supplied to me and fitting anti burglar devises to doors and windows to make sure that everything in the house is made secure. You can't be too careful with all the break ins these days. My company is Homesafe Alarms. I pride myself in being the the best in my line. The work is very lucrative. I work door to door."  
  
"And how did you come to be present at the Larkhall Prison open day." Jo Mills asked.  
  
"I happened to be invited to the Masonic meeting that one of His Majesty's Prison Larkhall's Prison Officers addressed, a Mr James Fenner. He persuaded me to sign up for the 'Adopt a Prisoner' scheme. I thought that while I had been working to make the houses of England safe from burglars, anything that my small efforts could deliver would be worthwhile."  
  
"The randy bastard," Yvonne whispered under her breath to Karen." The bored housewife gets a lot of 'after sales service' from fellas like him." She knew that his cross-examination was going to feature her shag with him. She looked intently at the smooth man in the witness stand and the past image of Yvonne Atkins that his presence reflected. At that time she had schemed for the rare chance to temporarily satiate her permanently unsatisfied sexual lust. This was a permanent memory of life behind bars at Larkhall. The Yvonne Atkins of the present was a bit out of sync with the replay of these memories, especially in recent days. Karen nodded without comment, as if in understanding of the accepted social commonplace.  
  
"I understand that you were present at the open day. Were you present throughout the proceedings right up to the explosion?" Jo Mills asked.   
  
"No I was not"  
  
"And at about what time did you leave the exhibition, Mr Khan, and where did you go to?"  
  
"I can't remember the exact time but about an hour before the explosion. I heard a rap song that three of the ladies performed at the exhibition and, shortly afterwards, Yvonne Atkins invited me to a side room to be somewhere more private. I followed her and the room looked like a chapel with this crucifix on the table. We ended up shagging."  
  
"Mr Khan, can you explain this after having been only briefly acquainted with Mrs Atkins" Jo Mills asked, knowing full well that if she didn't ask the question, George Channing certainly would. George was eyeing the man up with a curious expression on her face of apparent disgust which did not quite ring true. John Deed concentrated his stare at George, hoping that telepathy would convey to her a red warning light that she had reached the limits of his tolerance. Unfortunately, telepathy had never worked in their marriage so why should it suddenly start working in their professional life?   
  
"Yvonne Atkins is a very attractive woman. How could I resist such a woman?" Came the appeal with outstretched hands in John Deed's direction to which he nodded."What else can I say?"   
  
"And were you interrupted while this was taking place and what was the nature of this interruption." Jo Mills asked, wanting to skip to the essentials.  
  
"The phone on the table rang. I wanted to ignore it but Mrs Atkins insisted that I answer the phone. She told me to pretend to be the reverend and to fob the caller off."  
  
"And what did the caller say. Be exact in your answer."   
  
"I can remember distinctly a male voice saying 'Sorry to bother you. Is Snowball Merriman there?'"  
  
"And what happened next"  
  
"I repeated the name 'Snowball Merriman' to Mrs Atkins and then she grabbed the phone off me and cut the caller off. Mrs Atkins insisted that I get out of the room and mingle with the rest of the visitors while she stayed in the room on her own. I went out of Larkhall with the rest of the guests. That was the last that I saw of her that day."   
  
George moved into position with the curious combination of understated sexual allure and as much implicit power dressing as the formalities of her trade as a barrister permitted.  
  
"Mr Khan" her aristocratic tones climbed and dived down the scales patronising the man as much as she could."Do you normally make a habit of seducing women that you are offering your services to?"  
  
"Like I say, I run a very lucrative business. I can afford to live in some luxury." Mr Khan's smooth voice locked horns with George's.  
  
"I'll bet. Let me put it this way. What sort of clientele do you visit in their homes."  
  
"Well, you know, the rich lonely housewives in the suburbs. They're concerned about the security of their homes. They have to be well off to afford my services." Ajit Khan came back at George, unabashed and smug.  
  
"And in the extras that you charge for, does the after sales service include the granting of sexual favours in return for a fifteen per cent markup on the bill."  
  
"Quite often," Mr Khan's smug smile extended itself a second time round his face. "There are plenty of sex starved women who can't get it off their husbands. Only my charges come at twenty five per cent if you're interested at any time." Mr Khan's smile verged on a leer in George's direction.  
  
"We are talking about your sleasy livelihood,Mr Khan, not myself." George snapped bitchily at him.  
  
Jo Mills hid her smile behind her hand. The superbitch is letting it all show for all to see. The last two words are a real giveaway of the relationship between her and her Cabinet Minister. At least Mr Khan is an honest male tart and doesn't hide under false colours  
  
"And does your lavish lifestyle support just yourself or is there anyone that your very lucrative enterprise is supporting." George asked maliciously, fully expecting this man to be the type to have a wife and children and to be screwing around on the side.  
  
"My sister," Mr Khan said shortly and simply."Our father chucked her out when she got pregnant and I am keeping her. I am Asian enough to remember that in my culture, that members of the family support each other, something that your culture has forgotten." His accent became less smooth and silky and a trace of the terse chopped Indian accent emerged from underneath his Anglicised veneer.   
  
."So, Mr Khan, when you sneaked away with Mrs Atkins, would it be true to say that you are doing no more than you normally do with the many women who pass through your hands. I put it to you that your word cannot be depended on any more an anyone in your profession who makes a career of telling women what they want to hear." George let the more vicious side of her have full sway.  
  
"Except that I never took any money from Mrs Atkins. She was far better than the overweight housewives who come my way. Mrs Atkins is hot stuff, let me tell you. I don't have to pretend to her."  
  
"My lord." Jo Mill's cool voice broke in on the confrontation."This cross examination is turning into an interrogation as to Mr Khan's sexual morals and I fail to see the relevance of such questioning."   
  
"Quite," John Deed intervened. He had wanted to give George a generous length of rope to thoroughly hang herself and was acutely conscious of the prospect of being harangued at length at the next social function."I must direct you, Ms Channing, to ensure that your examination of the witness sticks to the point. This is after all not the Victorian age."   
  
"My lord, I must protest at the continual interference in the legitimate processes of my cross examination of witnesses in this trial. The man is nothing more than a male gigolo and his 'company' is a mere front for his sleazier activities. It's totally obvious. One look at him and you can tell the type." snapped George Channing in her best carrying voice.  
  
"You surely cannot claim to possess any hard evidence or expertise to back up your last assertion. Ms Channing?" John Deed's droll tones cut through the silence. He knew he ought to restrain himself but always gave way to temptation, the story of his life. "Otherwise, I must indicate to the jury, my preference for direct evidence from Mr Khan over your mere speculation."  
  
The five women at the front of the gallery erupted into laughter at this point causing George's face to redden in anger and lose all self restraint.  
  
"A fine one you are for lecturing me about morals, John Deed. Ever since I have first known you and married you once, there have been an endless disreputable array of blond tarts trooping in and out of your bed. God knows what I have had to put up with over the years. You are a disgrace to the judiciary of the country both in your personal and professional life and as for your latest piece of skirt who is……….."  
  
John Deed stood up from the judge's chair and finally exploded.  
  
"Silence, Ms Channing. You have gone too far and have reduced the dignity of the court   
  
proceedings to a common street brawl. I hold you in contempt of court and I sentence you to be confined in a cell immediately until as such time as you have purged your contempt to my complete and total satisfaction. Perhaps by this extreme action you will be finally persuaded to keep yourself in check as all my persuasions throughout the progress of this trial have been in vain. I hereby adjourn the court proceedings . I insist that all parties to the court proceedings remain behind until I am able to decide whether or not this court session can resume in the time remaining to us. Anyone who flouts my authority on this point will be subpoenaed. Can Ms Channing be escorted down to the cell by the ushers or do I have to call on the nearest constabulary to enforce this order… Perhaps a night in the local remand prison would make her more contrite."   
  
John Deed's voice thundered like an Olympic God down from on high and reverberated round the huge court chamber, setting off a slight secondary high pitched reverberation from the overhead lights. All were dumbstruck by the erupting volcano of verbal fury that erupted and poured down over the court like molten lava. His final parting shot in a malevolent grumble was the final more muted last aftershock  
  
"John, you can't do this," George Channing called out, incredulous as two ushers moved forward and secured their hold on each arm.  
  
"Can't I? I just have."John Deed replied with grim purpose.  
  
"I ask for the forbearance of those in the public gallery who are not compelled to remain behind to also respect the dignity of the court, and myself, by refraining from uttering a word at least within the court chamber. There is a quiet room available for your use until this court session is decided." John Deed's melodious tones rolled up to them like honey. All the five sharp eyed women immediately spotted the slight smile on John Deed's lips and the very noticeable twinkle in his eye.  
  
"Come on, you guys. Better do like the judge said." Karen said quietly though all of them were bottling up an irrepressible urge to fall about laughing. They started to stumble up the staircase, seeing a convenient room leading off the corridor.  
  
"About frigging time," Lauren replied."I've been gasping for a cigarette, I'll pop across to the nearest newsagent and get a couple of packets to share. Right, yeah?" and Lauren legged it up the flight of steps in record time ahead of the others.  
  
"Daddy, I'm in a cell, again." George's brusque voice from her mobile resounded in the earpiece of the old fashioned phone of her father as he was dozing off in his armchair with an empty glass of port on a side table.  
  
"What, again," rumbled the actorish voice. " I assume that it is Deed who has done this. You will have no option. You will have to grovel unashamedly this time."  
  
"But Daddy," wailed the disconsolate voice."The cell is so beastly squalid and cold."  
  
"The sooner you grovel, the sooner you are out. You can't afford to throw aside your fee with your expensive tastes." The rumbling voice hit George's weak spot and he put the phone down.  
  
"She was always argumentative as a child and she's got no better. Wonder where she gets it from, I don't know, this modern generation. We weren't like that at their age ……….." The voice rumbled away into a monologue which gradually wound down by itself like a clockwork toy.   
  
"Well well well, this is becoming a regular rendezvous for reprobate barristers and corrupt officials of the Lord Chancellor's Department" John Deed's amused tones broke in on George's thoughts.   
  
"You have done this to totally humiliate me. I shall never ever forgive your boorishness." George exploded, her pent up fury making her miss the sense of John Deed's remark.  
  
"What did you mean by regular rendez-vouz? You mean you make a habit of this reprehensible sense of humour."   
  
"This is no joke, George, as you may find out to your cost." John Deed's firm tones and a determined look in his eye sent a chill down George's spine. Anyone but this impossible man wouldn't stick this one out but John Deed had always been unpredictable.  
  
"I want you to abjectly and unreservedly and humbly apologise . And mean it."  
  
"I'll see you in hell first." George flared up at him.  
  
"I'll see you, Georgia Channing through the prison bars at visiting time in the next week or so if you don't watch your step." John Deed insisted relentlessly.   
  
"Oh God you are an impossible man." George blustered.  
  
"Yes, that is what first attracted you to me. Don't you remember." John Deed teased."Come on, repeat after me, Lawrence James was able to say it so why not you?"  
  
George spluttered with a mixture of rage and incredulity, trying to imagine that pompous man Lawrence James apologising for anything.   
  
"I….I….unreservedly…unreservedly….. and…and…. humbly…… humbly….." the litany was dragged out of George's mouth bit by bit like a very painful dental extraction.  
  
"There you are, it wasn't that painful, dear." John Deed smiled with that infuriating charm that maddened George more than anything. Accustomed as she was to dangling men from a fingernail or trampling on them, she found it acutely painful to being similarly suspended so painfully from John Deed's mischievous fingers. She brushed the dust off her elegant gown and made her way to the accustomed daylight of the court and gestured politely to the usher so that court could go back into session. 


	27. Part Twenty Seven

Part Twenty Seven   
  
The four of them moved in to one of the small witness rooms off the public gallery, whilst Lauren went to find somewhere that sold cigarettes.   
  
"That barrister certainly got her knickers in a twist," Said Yvonne.   
  
"That's what happens when you appear in front of your ex-husband, I suppose," replied Karen.   
  
"She's his ex?" Asked Cassie in astonishment.   
  
"Oh, yeah," Said Yvonne, "And the one prosecuting's his girlfriend."   
  
"Jesus, that's asking for trouble," commented Roisin.   
  
"I think she took this case on purpose," surmised Yvonne. "It gives her an opportunity to annoy the hell out of both of them."   
  
"I've never seen a Judge put a QC in a cell, though," said Cassie.   
  
"I can't wait to see her purge her contempt," Replied Yvonne with an evil grin on her face.   
  
"So, the judge and what's her name, Jo Mills, they're together are they?" asked Roisin.   
  
"So it seems" put in Karen.   
  
"They suit each other," mused Yvonne.   
  
"Never mind those two," Said Cassie a little too gleefully for Yvonne's liking. "What about you and this Ajit Khan?"   
  
"What about him?" asked Yvonne innocently.   
  
"What about him?" queried Roisin in disgust. "You're a sly old tart, Yvonne Atkins." Yvonne grinned.   
  
"Let's just say that the opportunity presented itself," She said with a gleam in her eye.   
  
"Was he worth it?" asked Roisin.   
  
"Yeah," said Yvonne contemplatively. "Not bad."   
  
"Give me a woman any day," put in Cassie. "What about you, Karen?" All eyes turned on Karen who at first didn't know where to look.   
  
"Having never partaken of such a thing I couldn't possibly comment," she said, a soft, innocent look on her face that clearly told Cassie Karen had at least considered it.   
  
"I wouldn't look at a man again now for anything," stated Roisin, her love for Cassie showing like the beam of a lighthouse. Yvonne stood up and walked over to look out of the window. Just occasionally, Yvonne could feel the closeness coming off Cassie and Roisin in waves and it hurt her. Whilst she was inside, she'd thought that the lack of someone to hold at night was terrible. But once at home in her enormous double bed, the lack of another person to take away the nightmares went soul deep. She had been lost in her thoughts, but she felt a presence next to her. Yvonne turned to face her.   
  
"Aren't they sweet?" said Karen softly gesturing at Cassie and Roisin, unabashedly cuddling.   
  
"After everything I saw them go through inside, it's good they got it back," said Yvonne, a wistful expression on her face.   
  
"So, you're hot stuff are you, Yvonne Atkins?" asked Karen, the wickedest grin on her face Yvonne had ever seen. Yvonne laughed.   
  
"Apparently so, yeah." She knew Karen had sensed her momentary lapse in to unwelcome thoughts, and was trying to cheer her up. Yvonne's eyes locked with Karen's and they almost felt as though they could see in to the other's soul.   
  
"Maybe you should follow their example," said Karen, her words caressing Yvonne's mind like honey.   
  
"As a former nurse, that would be your prescription, would it?" Yvonne asked, clearly playing with Karen.   
  
"Maybe," was all Karen could say. Yvonne's eyes seemed to go on for ever and if Karen had gazed in to them for the whole of her life it wouldn't be long enough. They were never ending whirlpools of emotion. Karen could, in that one moment, see everything in Yvonne's eyes. Pain, loneliness, laughter, and even the faintest hint of lust. When Cassie briefly looked over at Karen and Yvonne, she silently gestured at Roisin. But Cassie only had a moment to observe the innocent stargazers when there was a brief tap at the door, which was followed by the entrance of this week's proverbial gatecrasher.   
  
Jo stood in the doorway and followed Cassie's contemplative gaze. A slow, soft smile appeared on her face when she realised what she was seeing. Karen Betts and Yvonne Atkins were stood by the open window gazing in to each other's eyes, as if they were the only two in the entire world. She'd known she'd been right about those two when she'd seen them standing close together outside court the other day. I'm making a habit of this, she thought.   
  
"It's time to go back in to court," she said, hardly liking to break in on Karen and Yvonne's mutual appreciation of each other. Yvonne looked startled, as though she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't be. As Karen followed Jo out of the room, Cassie commented,   
  
"You look as guilty as sin. Anything you'd like to confess?" Yvonne stared at her.   
  
"No," she said, but there was a look on her face, a look of almost horrified realisation.   
  
"Yvonne, are you all right?" asked Roisin, thinking that now was possibly not the time for Cassie's usual lack of tact.   
  
"Yeah, I'm fine," murmured Yvonne. "Go on in, I won't be a minute." Sensing Yvonne needed a moment to herself, Roisin dragged Cassie out the door, and meeting Lauren in the corridor, escorted them both back to the gallery.   
  
Yvonne turned back to the window. What the hell had just happened to her? The way she and Karen had looked at each other was so, so intimate, so revealing. She'd felt like Karen could see her every part, all the physical and emotional aspects that went to make up Yvonne Atkins. In that moment when they'd looked deep in to each other's soul, Yvonne realised it'd felt like they were one being, in a similar way to how she felt when any man was buried deep inside her. But Karen hadn't even been touching her. There had been an electricity between them that Yvonne had never felt with anyone before. It was as if lightning had short-circuited her brain. She'd felt an enormous empathy with Karen, a feeling that they were equal, both striving to maintain their own little worlds which were being drawn closer and closer together. Why was this happening to her now? Was it because she hadn't had a bloke in more than a year, ever since Ajit Khan to be exact? Yvonne shook herself. There was no point in thinking like this. She either had to find herself a bloke, and fast, or accept what appeared to be the inevitable. Damn Cassie and her all-knowing smirk. Yvonne knew that she couldn't fight this thing, whatever it was. The pull towards Karen had been so strong it was like a magnet. She would simply have to wait and see what if anything happened, but the thought of the unknown scared her incredibly. It seemed Yvonne Atkins did do scared, at least with some things.   
  
As George was led in to court by the custody officer, Jo approached her.   
  
"Would you like legal representation, George?"   
  
"Not from you," was George's curt reply.   
  
"Well, do this again and you might need it," warned Jo, never more serious.   
  
"I don't need advice from John's latest piece of flesh," Said George, her voice quiet but clearly still enraged.   
  
"You might not want my advice," continued Jo, "But I'd take it if I were you."   
  
Slipping back in to the gallery, Yvonne was just in time to see the Judge make his way through the door behind the Judge's bench.   
  
"Ms Channing," Deed's voice resonated round the court. "I hope you have come to purge your contempt?"   
  
"Yes, My Lord," came George's clearly sorrowful reply. She was stood in front of the Judge's bench, John looking down on her. "I humbly and unreservedly apologise for my unwarranted behaviour in your presence this afternoon. It was uncalled for, and I beseech you to allow me to continue in my duty of representing my clients." The look of disgust on Jo's face made Karen silently laugh.   
  
"No beseeching is necessary, Ms Channing. But this is the second time I have held you in contempt, and I would caution you on pushing me thus far a third time. Do I make myself clear?"   
  
"Yes, My Lord."   
  
"Then, please, continue. Do you have any further questions for Mr. Khan?" George looked thoroughly flustered and out of sorts.   
  
"No, My Lord," she said feeling as stupid as she looked. John addressed the court.   
  
"Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for bearing with me in the slight complication of this afternoon's proceedings. Court will be adjourned until ten tomorrow morning."   
  
As the court filed out, Jo observed an evil smile beginning to grow on George's face. Catching up with her, she said,   
  
"If you're thinking of unleashing that temper of yours now that you're not in court, believe me today isn't the day for it." George whirled round and the fury in her eyes made Jo stop.   
  
"When will you keep your Oxfam-clad self out of my business. I am sick to death of finding you there at every turn."   
  
"George, I'll have this out with you with pleasure, but not here and not now. This is neither the time nor the place. Go home, have a large drink, and cool off. John threatened you with a night in prison, and we both know he isn't above doing it. Would you like to spend a night with this morning's witness for company?" Then at George's horrified look she said, "No, I didn't think so. Why did you take this case if my presence makes you so angry?"   
  
"Neil wants them to get off. Someone's leaning on him."   
  
"Who?" then George seemed to remember who she was talking to.   
  
"I shouldn't even be having this conversation with you." As she walked off, her hair flying, Jo wondered just what George had got herself involved with. Doing favours for cabinet ministers, especially if you were sleeping with one was never a good idea. This one would come back to haunt George, Jo just wondered when. 


	28. Part Twenty Eight

Part Twenty Eight   
  
As soon as the court chamber was cleared, John Deed scuttled over to his chambers, his sanctuary from all the outside pressures of the world. All through his chequered career, the only certainty and convention in his life was that no unwelcome visitor could or would harangue him about one of his many alleged misdeeds, public or private.  
  
Lying back in his reclining chair, he smiled wickedly to himself that the one day, Sir Ian Rochester and Lawrence James, his faithful and loyal family retainers, had been absent from the gallery. For once, they had missed out on one of his most spectacular and outrageous theatrical performances. He was touched by the way that they put their concerns for him above their own business and he was tempted to phone them up at home and keep them abreast of the latest news. Or perhaps not, he thought to himself, why cause them unnecessary suffering? After all, he had feelings for his human beings, even them.   
  
His smile faded when he thought back to George's adolescent temper tantrum at the end of the court session. He was outraged that that infernal woman had the affrontery to drag their personal life into the majesty and dignity of court proceedings and was just on the point of publicly naming Jo Mills as his mistress. Worse still, she was making a direct attack on his integrity. At that point he'd snapped. In a flash of instinct, he'd decided to shut her up for once and all and make her behave herself rather than suffer George's outrageous behaviour in silence. At moments like this, Brian Cantwell, reactionary and racist though he was, had a few redeeming qualities.   
  
Of course, Jo Mills's soft and gentle tap at his door was not an intrusion any more for him than it was for her in the way that he turned up at her tasteful mews cottage. His reflections of his many pleasures with Jo which a knock at the door heralded mutated into his half awake ears detecting the here and now knock at the door which must be her.   
  
"You don't normally keep me waiting, John." Jo smirked at him after he had kissed her on the cheek."Going off me?"  
  
"You're never more welcome than right now, Jo," sighed John gesturing her towards a chair. "Want a drink." he indicated his well-stocked drinks cabinet.   
  
"Well, if I wanted a knight in shining armour to defend me against the fearsome female dragon, Georgia, as she breathes fire and destruction at me, then you would make a good St George. Got the figure, too." Jo's slightly mocking tones were belied by an underlying layer of tenderness in her voice.  
  
"Yes well, Jo, I needed to shut her up once and for all." John Deed sighed wearily as he reached towards the rapidly emptying packet of Paracetamol and Codeine tablets.  
  
Jo shook her head incredulously at the man. She still remembered the feelings of admiration which first struck her when she became John Deed's pupil. The man was a young Olympus and stood head and shoulders over the stuffy crabbed old barristers that made the Bar an insufferable gentleman's club when she first started in her career. Yet why oh why does John have the ridiculous blind illusion that he could tame that female incarnation of fire and brimstone with a tongue that could cut like a knife. Why should he succeed now when he had totally failed for years? There was this one frailty about him that made him so touching and appealing.  
  
"Just as you say, John." Jo said tactfully. Then after a pause she asked the one question that had intrigued her that afternoon "Incidentally, what did you say to George in the cell?"   
  
" I made her say that 'I unreservedly and humbly apologise for my disgraceful, scandalous and personally abusive behaviour and I promise never again to disrupt the good running order of the court.' That will keep her within limits for the forseeable future. You saw how she was after the court hearing resumed," John Deed said in a satisfied tone.  
  
Jo turned her head away in complete despair. Surely John should see that all he had done was to light the very short fuse that would ignite the mixture of petrol and gelignite that was in George's nature. The only question was when the explosion would happen. Jo started to feel uncomfortable, feeling that John Deed's cosy chambers weren't quite as safe as it appeared.  
  
"Have you noticed, John how close Karen Betts and Yvonne Atkins are getting?" Jo asked, reaching out for a lighter topic of conversation.  
  
"Well, they do seem to get on well with each other." John replied.  
  
"That is not what I meant, John. I would say that there is definitely romance in the air ………..between the two of them." Jo's final words spelled it out in black and white to John.  
  
"You've mentioned that before. That's logically impossible. Only this afternoon, Ajit Khan said that Yvonne Atkins is 'hot stuff', or so I recall. I also had a talk with Karen Betts in private on a strict professional basis to find out the background of her rape allegation against James Fenner.. She came over as a very attractive woman to me and I suspect that she felt the same about me. What you suggest is as impossible as the prospect of you and George working amicably on a case together." John Deed finished smugly, laughing to himself at the total surrealistic absurdity of George and Jo ever agreeing on anything.  
  
Nineteen times out of twenty, John Deed would have been infuriatingly and smugly right, as Jo knew from their on off relationship. But this was the twentieth time.  
  
"I'll tell you, John. I'll make a bet with you on this. For once, I know I'm right and you're wrong."  
  
"I'd only be taking money out of your pocket, Jo."John Deed replied in a very lordly self assured tone that fired up Jo all the more to prove herself right and John wrong for once in their lives.  
  
"Who's talking about money? I'll bet you that if you're right, I'll cook you a three course meal of your choice, and, if by any chance that I win, you cook me a three course meal of my choice." Jo suggested in a misleadingly subdued tone, keeping a perfectly straight face.   
  
"Done." John Deed's voice full of certainty. He certainly admired Jo for the qualities that she had in her of justice, seeking after the truth and for her incisive legal mind. But there were times that she overstepped the mark and forgot that the Old Master had the ultimate wisdom. The very idea of two very attractive women being attracted to each other was a patent absurdity, he smiled to himself.  
  
Jo read the expression on John Deed's face as clear as pages in a nursery story. Well she who laughs last, laughs longest. They fell back into a companionable silence and an atmosphere of peace and serenity descended on the cosy room. They had that level of intimacy where they could both be comfortably silent and not need to talk.  
  
"Talking about Karen Betts," John Deed said presently." I felt genuinely sorry for her with her past experiences at the hands of that oily man, James Fenner." John Deed skirted round the description as he found it hard to describe it and conscious of Jo's reaction. More than that, he noted the incredible effort it had taken her to publically defend James Fenner at the end of the cross examination by George. "Forget my own feelings about the matter, which you know. I know that Karen Betts has been deeply wronged and there is unfinished business there. I promised Karen that I would ensure that this type of cover up never happens again. I've thought over this one and I want to do better than this. If the chance ever came, I would urge you to represent her in court and see James Fenner brought to book."  
  
A stray tear came to Jo's eyes which she brushed away. She knew that when John Deed talked this way, his feelings were entirely platonic and this was the John Deed, the utterly reliable and consistent champion of justice whom she'd first admired from afar many years ago.  
  
Suddenly a loud booming crash reverberated through the cloistered chambers. The ancient sturdy door had flown back on its hinges as if a mighty force had propelled it. It crashed back against the wall, the impact jerking two medium sized pictures from off the hooks with the tinkling of breaking glass.   
  
"John, I have to tell you that you are impossible." George Channing's voice peremptorily announced itself at operatic volume.   
  
"Don't you normally knock first before you smash the door off its hinges, George."John Deed retorted in his dry unnaturally quiet tones. "And are you telling me anything I don't know already?"  
  
"You know what I mean," George's outburst was accentuated by her stabbing forefinger in his direction. "I told Daddy about your latest little charade and he was positively incandescent with rage at you. Your latest pathetic attempt to defend your latest girlfriend's reputation will gain you even more enemies than you have already. Don't you care that this will find its way back to Charlie's college and expose her to ridicule."  
  
"Now see here, you total hypocrite." John Deed flared up at the way George unscrupulously made use of Charlie. "A fine example of humanity you are for selling your wares to the highest bidder, in this case that Cabinet Minister boyfriend who you leech off. At least Ajit Khan is honest about himself which is more than you are. Why, you are not fit to stand even ankle high to Jo who has more sense of…….."  
  
"Don't I get a word in here?" Jo Mills asked politely only for her words to be squashed underfoot by George's next incendiary remark.  
  
"At least he is able to get out there and strive to further his career and treat a woman how she should be treated."   
  
"Oh yes, you were never satisfied by last week's designer outfit, George. I must hand it to you, you were the woman who single handedly got the first designer shops off the ground decades ago with your personal wanton extravagance."  
  
"Rubbish," George snorted in contempt."It was only in my attempt to be a fitting consort to you at the social affairs to further your career."  
  
"A likely story, George. I must admit that your brazen nerve in telling outright lies is only excelled by your bombastic arrogance. It is as well that Charlie is coming under my influence in recent years and I am putting right your years of being the hopeless mother that you are."  
  
George uttered the sort of sound that the Eastern Express made when thundering through Peterborough Station at full throttle, and desperate to make up time.   
  
"I thought you had purged your contempt in court, George."  
  
"I may have publically purged my contempt but privately, I hold you in complete loathing and contempt personally." George stormed.  
  
"Just so that we know where we are….. inside and outside court." John retorted meaningfully.   
  
"Don't break that plate in your hand, George." John Deed spoke sharply as George made a grab for the nearest object on the sideboard . "It is a valuable ornament and was given to us as a wedding present."  
  
Wrong move, John, Jo thought from the sidelines but salvation came for the innocent and harmless crockery just in time. She had stood on the sidelines and noticed that she, the ostensible object of their row, had been sidelined and almost totally forgotten. She had given up trying to get in on this ding dong fight which to her clearly was one involving the two of them only. She drew out a cigarette which she lit, calmly blowing smoke into the air, reclining in the armchair. What has that brazen hussy got to be so nonchalant about, George thought furiously, she ought to treat this seriously. Why on earth is Jo sitting back, John Deed's irritation matched George's, while I'm defending her honour, she ought to treat this seriously.  
  
"I say, Deed." Niven spoke from the still wide open door."Your row can be heard all the way down the corridor. You are rather public. What's going on, old man?"  
  
John Deed straightened his rather dishevelled clothing and adjusted his face.  
  
"Oh, it's all right, Michael, just a normal frank exchange of views between ex-husband and ex-wife." Similarly, only George's red face which even she could not control, betrayed the signs of the recent row, though the smile on her face was rather artificial and forced.  
  
That's a good one, John, Jo smiled to herself.  
  
  
  
"Frank exchange of views, eh." Niven muttered to himself. "That's what the Japanese claimed when they bombed Pearl Harbour."   
  
Michael Niven could feel the bad vibrations between John Deed and George bounce off each other from their opposing corners but he had discharged his duty and supposed wrongly that the two of them would act like responsible grownups as befits their status.  
  
"I'm glad things have cooled down now a bit Bad form these unseemly wrangles." Was his parting remark and he wandered off.  
  
The clock ticked from one to ten while Niven's footsteps receded down the corridor for hostilities to resume.  
  
"You despicable man." George hissed.  
  
"You contemptible woman." John Deed shot back.  
  
"Children, children, you heard what Michael Niven said," Jo Mills chimed in before the name calling started to get out of proportion."We've got a trial on our hands, remember." Both John Deed and George felt as if a bucket of cold water was thrown over them. They both blinked and looked round the chamber, both of them for the first time taking in their surroundings.  
  
George brusquely grabbed at Jo Mills cigarette packet and helped herself to a much needed hit of nicotine. Her lighter wavered around at the end of the cigarette and she inhaled deeply, for once in her life saying nothing. John Deed said nothing as, like George, they were both on unfamiliar ground outside their set piece two way arguments which they knew off by heart.  
  
"Why did you not caution that McKenzy woman about her behaviour in court when I asked you to?" George asked John Deed.   
  
John was unsettled partly because this was the most reasonable that George had been in decades and partly as a bit of him was inclined to think that she was right. His pride forbade him to come out and admit this.  
  
"If it helps, George, I complained to John when he let your predecessor go too far in his cross examination of Yvonne Atkins. Perhaps you ought to make this quits, George."  
  
Jo could see that George had understood the full force of her arguments but carried on, puffing on her cigarette.  
  
"Both of you say sorry to each other." Jo Mills in parental mode with that determined edge to her voice.  
  
"Sorry," John Deed said huffily.  
  
"Sorry," George replied sniffily.  
  
"And perhaps you ought to take my advice, George," Jo Mills persisted."Go home, have a large drink, and cool off like I advised you to." Jo smiled to herself. I bet this is the first time these two have apologised to each other in their lives.  
  
"I don't need you to tell me what to do." George said grumpily but she turned her heel and stalked out of the door. She tried to shut the door behind her but there was a gap of about three inches between the door and the recess where the hinges, twisted out of shape by the ferocity of George's entry refused to let the door shut tight.  
  
"You'd better get the workmen to fix that door." Jo suggested. "And I'm going home, " Jo yawned."I'm tired. You'd better get some rest, John, you're tired. And after tonight, you won't need those painkillers."  
  
John Deed's feelings were a mixture of vexation at Jo playing mother and the realisation that without her taking charge, the situation would have spiralled out of control. They all needed a working relationship to see justice properly done. John was done in. He needed an early night. 


	29. Part Twenty Nine

Part Twenty Nine   
  
On Friday morning, It was Yvonne's turn to feel apprehensive about going to court. She'd barely slept the night before, going over and over what that adrenalin rush between her and Karen really meant. She'd sat up in bed most of the night, smoking and brutally examining her feelings for Karen. Yvonne vaguely thought it had been the hardest night of her life. Possibly the only one to rival it was her first in Larkhall. She'd barely spoken that evening, and on her way to bed, Lauren had put her arms round her and told her she loved her. Yvonne couldn't remember the last time Lauren had done that. She was utterly shell-shocked by what had happened that afternoon. Yvonne Atkins didn't do things like falling for other women, it just didn't happen. The impact of their harmless flirting had been enormous. She'd felt it like a gunshot to the chest. But why had she been flirting with Karen anyway? This was the million dollar question.   
  
Yvonne could acknowledge to herself that Karen was extremely attractive. She could also say that Karen was very good company. But deeper than this, Yvonne was all too aware of a bond, a connection, something that pulled them ever closer together. When she'd gazed right in to Karen's soul, Yvonne had felt complete. She knew that, and as much as she wanted to, she couldn't possibly deny it. Was she so desperate for a shag or a cuddle that finding another woman sexually attractive had become her best bet? But Yvonne realised that it wasn't the whole idea of fancying, loving, or sleeping with another woman that had provoked this reaction from her, it was the fact that it was all so new. Sure, she had been screwed about by two many men, including Charlie, but men was what she knew, what she ultimately understood. They were safe because she knew what to expect from them. She knew how to please them and minimise the possibility of being hurt by them. But the idea of doing all this with a woman frightened her. but what had she really achieved by keeping to the proverbial straight and narrow. She had a daughter whom she was usually proud of, but this seemed to be her only success. Her son had taken her for a complete fool, and was probably about to serve a long prison sentence. She didn't attempt to go in to whose fault that really was, because she was low enough already. Her husband, who she'd loved and been faithful to for thirty years, had cast her aside like a used condom as soon as she'd been sent to Larkhall, and taken up with Renee Williams, before being killed on the steps of the court after nobbling the jury. Then there was herself. Not only had she utterly failed with her marriage and her children, she had managed to get herself four years in prison, and on release, end up a lonely, frustrated, middle-aged woman. Not a startling array of achievements for forty-eight years of living, she thought. So, why not try something new, why not take a risk. She knew this was the logical thing for her to do, to try life with a woman when all her men had treated her so ruthlessly, but everything is easier said than done. Yvonne was frightened by the sheer intensity of the feelings that look between her and Karen had induced. It'd been a mixture of lust, completeness and a need to protect all in one. She'd never before found a woman sexually attractive, but was this simply because she'd never either allowed herself to or even thought of the possibility. Was it going to take something entirely new to fill the gap that Charlie's desertion and subsequent death had created. Yvonne needed someone permanent in her life, she needed someone who would be there to hold her at night and to understand every bit of her personality. This had never entirely happened with Charlie, but at the time, Yvonne had learned to accept what she had. But maybe now was the time to try and seek the type of fulfillment she craved, and if it could only be found in a woman, then this was the path she might have to take.   
  
When Yvonne sat down next to Cassie in the public gallery, Cassie's greeting of the day was,   
  
"God, you look terrible. Are you okay?"   
  
"Don't," Said Yvonne, so tired that she feared she might cry, even though she'd thought she'd cried all her tears the night before. Cassie took her hand, gave it a squeeze and said no more. A brief smile touched Yvonne's lips as Barbara took the stand.   
  
"I swear by all mighty god to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," Rang out Barbara's cultured tones.   
  
"She ought to impress the jury," muttered Cassie. Jo moved to stand in front of Barbara.   
  
"Mrs. Mills, please would you tell the court of your initial impression of the defendant, Snowball Merriman."   
  
"When she first arrived, we all thought she was an American film star. She gave the impression of someone who'd been around, lived life to the full and taken every hard knock in her stride. Her persona was that of someone who would stop at nothing to get what she wanted, including getting very friendly with her personal officer, Jim Fenner. If you ask me, this always has been and always will be the real Snowball Merriman. The American accent might have been fake, but the rest of that persona wasn't." George raised a hand.   
  
"My Lord, is this witness an expert in human psychology?" Barbara also needed no protection from John.   
  
"No," She said looking George in the eye. "But spending time in a prison does give one some insight in to human nature." Yvonne grinned.   
  
"How did your impression of her change once the truth about her film career came to light?" Asked Jo.   
  
"I fell in to the trap of thinking her brave for standing up for herself and telling anyone who would listen how she'd got in to doing the things she had." Barbara again directed her gaze at George. "We all have the capacity to be taken in and made a fool of."   
  
"When did you begin to have doubts about Snowball Merriman's integrity?" Continued Jo.   
  
"She began to spend a lot of time around Henry, Reverend Mills. I caught her using his phone, clearly talking to a boyfriend, and not her mother as she'd told Henry. I thought she was taking Henry for a fool."   
  
"I have submitted the phone records of the prison for this time, My Lord, which do show that calls were made from Reverend Mills' office to Ritchie Atkins' mobile phone."   
  
"She made the pretence of getting very involved with the preparations for the open day. She borrowed an altar cloth from Henry, which she said would be used for one of the displays." Jo moved to the evidence bench and held up a wide expanse of material.   
  
"Is this the altar cloth in question? This is 5D in your bundle, My Lord."   
  
"Yes, that's the one," Replied Barbara. "I heard that's what she was wearing when she tried to escape."   
  
"Mrs. Mills," Continued Jo. "Where exactly were you at the point of the explosion?"   
  
"I was in the library, with seven other inmates and the prison governor, Neil Grayling. I suffer from claustrophobia, and being confined in such a small space with the flames growing ever closer terrified me. I sustained a head injury during the explosion which made me totally deaf for some time after the fire."   
  
"I have submitted Mrs. Mils' medical report to confirm this, My Lord, 5G in your bundle."   
  
"At what point did your hearing return?" Asked Jo.   
  
"It was about five weeks after the fire. I could hear muffled sounds of people talking, of Snooker balls clashing, and the occasional slam of a door."   
  
"And who was the first person you informed of your being able to hear again?"   
  
"Yvonne Atkins. She had her suspicions that Snowball was again making contact with her son, and she asked me to keep acting as if I couldn't hear, so that I would be able to get close enough to listen to Snowball's phone conversations. In doing this, I learnt that Snowball was planning another escape attempt."   
  
"do you remember exactly what her words were?"   
  
"She said, "Our baby's tucked up nice and safe, all ready for the weekend. Your mum thinks you've dumped me, Ritchie" I'm assuming the baby she was talking about was the gun."   
  
"you actually heard her say the name, Ritchie?" Asked Jo, wanting to make this absolutely clear.   
  
"Yes," Replied Barbara with utter certainty. "She definitely called him Ritchie."   
  
George moved forward with a gleam in her eye.   
  
"Mrs., Mills," She said, glancing at a piece of paper as if to make sure she had Barbara's name right. "Do you see yourself as a credible witness?"   
  
"Yes?" Said Barbara, fairly sure she knew what was coming.   
  
"Well," Said George, with the air of someone with the ignition to the atom bomb at her fingertips. "I'm not sure that the jury will see you as such when they learn just what sort of a person you really are. Isn't it true that you were once guilty of bigamy?"   
  
"If you are asking whether I was found guilty of bigamy in a court of law," Threw back Barbara, "Then the answer is no."   
  
"Whether or not you were found guilty of this crime by a jury is neither here nor there, Mrs. Mills..."   
  
"Actually, Ms Channing," Butted in John, "Surely that fact is the all important question in this situation."   
  
"My Lord," Replied George. "There is no doubt that Barbara Mills, formerly Barbara Hunt, was fictitiously married to Peter Hunt, whilst she was still married to Arthur roper."   
  
"Barbara Mills is not on trial, Ms Channing, and I would thank you to remember it."   
  
"My Lord," Persisted George. "I am simply trying to establish that the witness is neither credible nor trustworthy."   
  
"I know exactly what you're trying to do, Ms Channing, but I can't agree with the way you are doing it."   
  
"Mrs. Mills, how can you prove that my clients were having a phone conversation during the time you were supposed to be still deaf?"   
  
"As I was the only witness to one side of the conversation, I can only tell you what I heard," Conceded Barbara.   
  
"So we only have your word that you were asked to keep an ear on Snowball Merriman's movements."   
  
"I'm sure that if you recall Yvonne Atkins," Barbara hit back, "She will confirm having asked me to do this."   
  
"I'm sure that won't be necessary," Replied George hurriedly, clearly not wanting to tangle with the woman who had all but reduced Brian Cantwell to tears.   
  
"I have no further questions, My Lord."   
  
"Court is adjourned until after lunch," Called out Deed.   
  
In the foyer, Yvonne went to meet Barbara.   
  
"Well done," She said, hugging her. "You did brilliantly."   
  
"Well, she got under my skin," Replied Barbara, clearly talking about George.   
  
"You gonna be up in the gallery with us from now on?" Asked Yvonne, feeling that a new face would do them all good.   
  
"Of course. How's Denny getting on?"   
  
"She's okay, just wound up because of the trial. It brings it all back to her."   
  
"Do you think she'd like a letter from me?" Asked Barbara.   
  
"Of course she would," Replied Yvonne with a smile.   
  
"And how are you?" Barbara asked, looking shrudely at the shadows under Yvonne's eyes.   
  
"I'm okay," Said Yvonne quickly.   
  
"And I've got a clean record," Quipped Barbara. "You look like you could do with a chat."   
  
"Yeah, maybe. There's just things going on that I don't understand right now, that's all."   
  
"Well, you know where I am," Said Barbara, fondly thinking of the many times she'd listened to Nikki declaiming love and all its complex eccentricities, and wondered briefly if this was why Yvonne was looking so drained. 


	30. Part Thirty

Part Thirty   
  
By black cab taxi, by private car or the much trodden uneven steps up from the nearest Underground station, all roads mentally and physically converged on the imposing archway entrance of the Old Bailey court. These trails focus in from all points of the compass to this one fixed point like the spokes of a wheel does to the hub.  
  
Cassie always walked boldly arm in arm with Roisin, the first there after the lunchbreak, her sharp blue eyes on the lookout of three increasingly familiar friends of theirs and, sure enough Yvonne, Lauren, Karen Babs and Henry's faces had been spotted in the foyer of, the Old Bailey. It was now Henry's turn to testify in court while the others testified with their presence, by being there to see the trial through to the end. All of them knew that they took the place of those at Larkhall who were locked up behind bars and could only follow the proceedings from second hand throwaway remarks from some of the screws.   
  
Denny as much as any of them was on tenterhooks. Her present was put on hold while justice was being fought out on the battlegrounds of carved stone and ancient mahogany, the weight of the lawbooks, and the weapons of war, the power of the spoken word.   
  
In the break, John Deed had sellotaped a hopeful notice to his front door in chambers "Under Repair" and had strung the door handle to a discreet nail he had gingerly hammered into the door frame to shut the door as tight as he could make it and keep up appearances. He banished this from his mind and took himself to where he felt most comfortable, his judge's throne where he watched Jo prepare to call the most unusual witness ever seen in the witness box, the Rev Henry Mills, with his apologetic manner and white clerical collar.  
  
"Reverend Mills," Jo Mills asked." Can you describe to the court the circumstances in which the defendant, Snowball Merriman, came to your notice while you were prison chaplain at Larkhall."   
  
"Yes indeed." And Henry cleared his throat nervously. "I first met her when she introduced herself to me and asked about the Sunday morning weekly services that I run. My congregation is small, considering the size of Larkhall Prison so anyone who feels that she has a soul to be saved and actively wishes to join in, is especially welcome. Snowball Merriman stood out from any ordinary new member of the congregation, as she was very unusual and striking in her appearance. She made an immediate impact. She was an American, or so I was led to believe, and had that nationality's enthusiasm and drive…….and she was very attractive."  
  
"He's got a lousy taste in women." Cassie snorted contemptuously. "I would never have touched her even if she was sitting up and begging for it and even if I hadn't had a shag for a year."  
  
Roisin similarly itemised her list of Snowball's moral and physical shortcomings, all the more intriguing for Yvonne hearing a respectable mother talk that way.  
  
"Was there any single event that made her stand out from the rest of the congregation and, if so, can you describe it." pursued Jo.  
  
"Yes, I can remember it as if it were yesterday. One of the staunchest and most fervent members of the flock, Crystal Gordon, had sadly lost her faith and started up an "Anti Bible Class" group. I went to the group to try and reason with her and the others but I couldn't get a word in edgeways. I was in a quandary as to what to do. Then Snowball Merriman came to see me of her accord to explain that she could help me out with this problem."  
  
"Can I stop you there Reverend Mills." Jo interposed." Can you remember if Snowball Merriman was actually at that meeting?   
  
"I'm not sure. She may have been."  
  
"And how did she help you out."  
  
" Snowball Merriman conducted the next Sunday service ….."  
  
"What?" George called out in total incredulity."You mean that you as a member of the cloth allowed a common criminal to take a service. Might as well let them take the keys to the cells and let them run the prison."  
  
"You will have the opportunity to make these points, Ms Channing, when your turn comes to cross-examine the witness. The witness may, in any case, have a rational explanation for an apparently unorthodox course of action," John Deed cut in on George, quietly and firmly, being intrigued as to what the answer might be.  
  
Yvonne and Karen grinned knowingly at each other. George Channing was evidently a paid up member of the "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" brigade. If she knew how close she had come to the truth at Larkhall, then her outpourings would easily upstage the most rabid 'hang them and flog them' platform speaker at the Conservative Party Conference, even Margaret Thatcher herself.  
  
"It does seem rather unorthodox," Henry continued, clearly flustered." But I thought that I might succeed if one of the prisoners spoke to the congregation about her own experiences. Time was of the essence, especially as Crystal Gordon's influence seemed in danger of causing the limited congregation to fall by the wayside. I am not used to spurning any help offered if the intention is sincere. You will find a reference to it in the Bible in……"  
  
"Quite," Jo Mills interposed. The Reverend Mills had temporarily forgotten which pulpit he stood in out of sheer nervousness. "Your explanation was very clear. And what happened at the service."  
  
"She was a revelation." Henry explained enthusiastically. "She retold how she had gone out to Hollywood and had turned to drugs and had become, errm, a loose woman."   
  
"Pray be precise in your wording, Reverend Mills." John Deed's voice smoothly inserted itself into the cross examination to save Henry's embarrassment. "The language may be uncommon for a man of the cloth but it will assist the deliberations of the court to have the words quoted verbatim."  
  
He smiled down kindly and reassuringly on the man.  
  
"As far as I can recall, Snowball had said that she had been a 'junkie and a whore'," Henry swallowed at this point "but she explained that she had had a spiritual revelation and prayed to the Lord for forgiveness. She said that she felt so ashamed as she had let the Devil use her body for his evil work and wanted to let him into her life. And she invited the congregation to go down on their knees to pray and ask for the Lord's forgiveness And she asked first Al McKenzy, then the rest of the congregation to hold their lighted cigarette lighter in the air and blow them out and to relight them as an illustration of God's forgiveness."  
  
"Can I stop you at this point, Reverend Mills. Can you demonstrate this to the court so that they can picture this in the light of Snowball's later crimes?" Jo Mills asked Henry pleasantly. The only point of difference is that you should hold the cigarette lighter as Snowball Merriman would otherwise have done and imagine that we are your congregation. Imagine your lesson for today is the Parable of the Cigarette Lighter.""  
  
"You mean, me?" Henry asked rather bashfully.  
  
"My lord," George chimed in."I object to this. I do not see why this trial should be degraded to the level of the local amateur theatrical society?"  
  
"My lord, the main thrust of the case for the prosecution is that the defendant, Snowball Merriman, is a consummate actress with an ability to fool and deceive those around her to achieve her end. An enactment of this scene will demonstrate exactly the way she did not stoop even to exploit religious susceptibilities for her own ends and is obviously material to the trial."  
  
"Your objection is overruled, Ms Channing. You may proceed, Mrs Mills but obviously within reasonable limits."  
  
"Henry'll go through with this one. After all these years of standing in the pulpit, there's more confidence in him than there appears to be." Babs nodded confidently.  
  
Henry accepted Jo Mill's gold cigarette lighter and looked thoughtfully at his feet for a bit. He glanced sideways at Snowball's angry glare and remembered the beguiling smiles of before. Wrong move, Babs thought, that glare will finally make Henry go for it.  
  
Henry searched back into his memory and latched onto one of the most repellent principal figures of the theological college he had attended. A playoff of him against that deceitful woman, Snowball Merriman, gave him the mental frame of reference he desperately needed to lock into.  
  
"Show me a flame" And Henry flicked a flame from Jo's gold lighter and held it aloft, arms and eyes pointing skywards.  
  
"Now blow it out." Henry spoke shortly to himself and blew the flame out."  
  
"That's what we've all done to God, just because some voice told us to do. But it doesn't matter how many times we've blown him away, we can still light up again, if we want to, yeah. Anyone else want to light up again with God?" Henry's tone lifted up the scale in an exaggerated slow paced, amazed theatrical delivery in a voice alien to his nature as he held the lighter flame aloft.   
  
'Let's all sing Hymn 37, Snowball Merriman said ……………and how bitterly do I ever regret listening to that voice," Henry's real angry voice dropped down to his normal modest delivery as he first quoted Snowball and then the real man spoke for himself, ,cutting through all the high flown, cloudy fake religiosity.   
  
"Thank you very much, Reverend, for making that event so very real both for the court and for myself." Jo said very softly to Henry who looked all round him as he resumed his position in the witness stand. Jo Mills turned and stared at that brassy haired woman with a contempt that glanced off her.   
  
"When and in what circumstances did the defendant, Snowball Merriman, ask to borrow your room?" Jo resumed.   
  
"It was very soon after the service, that Snowball Merriman came to me to ask me for a favour. Her mother had been taken ill. She explained that her mother was the only member of the family in her life as her father had cruelly abandoned her mother when she was very young, had beaten and abused her mother. She had always been close to her and that she had tried to get through on the phone but the hospital kept passing her from one person to another …….."  
  
"Not at any hospital I've worked at, you lying cow," Karen's incensed voice muttered in Yvonne's ear. She had worked in public institutions all her life and was ready to accept any reasonable criticism but any malicious or ignorant name calling of hard worked dedicated overworked staff roused her anger almost in the same way that Sylvia reacted. "The women on a hospital switchboard have a bloody difficult job to do."  
  
"Really breaks your heart to hear her sob story, Karen."Yvonne sneered in reply."Brings tears to your eyes, doesn't it."  
  
Both of them were starting to wonder just how much self control they would have next week when that tart watching from the sidelines came to take the stand.  
  
"………….so I offered her my room to phone from. She was very reluctant to take up my offer……"  
  
"I'll bet," Babs snorted, easily able to visualise Snowball's tear jerking performance.  
  
"………but I persuaded her in the end and she thanked me from the bottom of her heart and her fetching smile quite touched me."  
  
"How many times did you let Snowball Merriman have access to your room, Reverent Mills."  
  
"Two or three times as far as I can remember." Henry replied………..  
  
George Channing's approach to her cross examination started out more muted than normal. There was something about a man of the cloth that made her usual tactics of sarcastic verbal thrusts seem indecent, even to her own ears and so, unusually, she was forced to rely on understated logic.  
  
"I have a number of questions to ask of you, Reverend Mills. You must be aware that, when you took up a post as the resident Vicar of Larkhall Prison, you became part of the prison establishment, were you not, and as much responsible for the security of the prison as anyone."  
  
"I am aware that I have a secular responsibility to the Prison authorities."  
  
"So were you not guilty of a lapse of judgement when you granted the defendant rather unusual privileges. And cannot the court conclude though, admirable though your knowledge might be on religious matters, your grasp of more secular matters might be a little shaky. I trust that you do not take offence if I put it this way?" George's bright white smile was but a white painted steel trap.  
  
"It did seem unusual but Snowball Merriman is a very persuasive woman. This all happened early in my stay at Larkhall and I may have been somewhat naïve. The elderly congregation at Chipping Norton, my last parish were of a different composition as you might appreciate." Henry added rather shortly.  
  
For a vicar, he is hitting back at that cow barrister better than I would have thought, Yvonne grinned. Then again, he's been with Babs who's tougher than she looks and she's   
  
probably influenced him over the last few months.  
  
"Precisely what were the motives for your unusual generosity and favours that you bestowed on a very attractive woman and I quote your words whose "fetching smile quite touched you." George Channing's aristocratic tones reverted to her normal bitchiness as she felt out the Reverend Mill's weaknesses.  
  
"If, by that question, you are insinuating that there was any impropriety between myself and Miss Merriman, then, madam, you are very much mistaken." Henry's tones hardened up into offended middle class respectability."I resent your attitude very much."  
  
"Ms Channing "John Deed intervened, "I think that you will recall that the witness has given a very frank and free explanation of his actions. I would caution you from badgering the witness."  
  
"I withdraw the question, "George snapped. She moved back to her accustomed place to pretend to consult her notes while the court and gallery alike wondered what fresh stratagem she would employ. In reality, she was buying time and waiting till her temper had cooled down.   
  
"I understand that you are now married to the previous witness Barbara Mills, Barbara Hunt as she then was at Larkhall. Can you tell the court when your association with Barbara Mills started and in particular, was it before or after her release from Larkhall, reverend?"   
  
George's bright smile and final words held no respect for Henry, rather she intended to let him trip himself up with his own feelings of guilt.  
  
"I have no hesitation in saying that I first became romantically involved with my dear wife Barbara when she was at Larkhall. And nothing in my experience since then has caused my confidence in her to waver as there are no secrets between us….……."  
  
"Let's have a little less of the Mills and Boon dialogue," George struck back, rattled at Henry's forceful rejoinders to her questions. "I put it to you that the value of your evidence is diminished in the same way that your position as the Vicar of Larkhall Prison is diminished. I ask you, was this the act of a responsible clergyman to take up with a bigamist who was convicted of manslaughter."  
  
Henry paused a moment, very wisely, to answer the question to himself so that he could answer in court.  
  
"I may have a problem in facing the archbishop on the matter but I will have no hesitation in facing my Maker when the time comes. That is, to me, what matters most."  
  
The short and simple declaration of religious faith caused a spontaneous burst of clapping from the gallery at the way Henry, the archetypal self effacing man finally came out on top in the cross examination by the barrister who, on the face of it, looked certain to eat him up for breakfast.  
  
John Deed silenced the applause by a gracious hand gesture.  
  
"No more questions, my lord." George Channing muttered sulkily.   
  
"Court is adjourned." intoned John Deed which released everyone out into the outside world.  
  
  
  
Karen made her way out into the foyer , caught up with Yvonne and touched her arm to gain her attention.   
  
"Yvonne, we need to talk"  
  
Yvonne turned round to look into Karen's eyes. A sixth sense told her that this was one moment in her life where the right choice had to be made despite her doubts and fears.  
  
"I guess so," she said casually and they threaded their way through the crowds and made their way to the nearest pub. 


	31. Part Thirty One

Part Thirty One   
  
As Karen returned from the bar with two large glasses of whisky, Yvonne felt a sudden sense of Deja Vu. But for the pub itself and the clothes she was wearing, this could have been that occasion almost a year ago when Karen had taken her for a drink after visiting ritchie.   
  
"Do you get the feeling we've been here before?" She said to Karen, as a way of breaking the ice.   
  
"Yes," Replied Karen, remembering the brief thoughts she'd had about Yvonne on that day. Karen lit them both a cigarette, in another unconscious gesture of repetition from that day that might have been their beginning. Yvonne took an enormous slug of her drink, as if to give her courage.   
  
"I didn't expect to feel like this," Yvonne began.   
  
"To feel like what?" Asked Karen, knowing the answer but also knowing that Yvonne needed to say it, to make it real. Yvonne gave her an exasperated look. "Tell me," Said Karen gently. "Being honest with each other is the only way we can deal with this."   
  
"You make me feel things I've never even felt with a bloke. It's like you can see everything there is, that I don't have to hide anything from you, and that's scary."   
  
"Why?"   
  
"Because when you're that open with someone, you give them endless opportunities to hurt you." Karen wondered at the significance of Yvonne's slipping unknowingly in to the second person, and knew it was her way of avoiding talking about herself.   
  
"What happened yesterday was what did it for you, wasn't it?" Asked Karen.   
  
"Yeah. I felt like you were looking right in to my soul, and it didn't bother me. I didn't care that you could see everything there is to see. If it makes any sense, I felt complete."   
  
"I know," Said Karen, "That's how it felt for me too."   
  
"Was yesterday the first time you felt it?" Asked Yvonne. Karen's gaze turned slightly sheepish.   
  
"No," She said, "Not quite."   
  
"Do tell?" Prompted Yvonne, definitely intrigued despite her better judgment. Remembering the face she'd seen in her bath the other night, Karen couldn't help but blush. Yvonne laughed.   
  
"This I have to hear," She said, thoroughly enjoying Karen's discomfort.   
  
"No way," Said Karen, "You'd have to know me a lot better than this to hear something like that."   
  
"I'll keep it in mind," Replied Yvonne, finding their flirting far more comfortable than straightforward analysis.   
  
"You remember when we went to the pub after visiting Ritchie last year? It just struck me at the time how attractive you are." At Yvonne's look of disbelief, Karen held up a hand to forestall any interruption. "You made me laugh," She continued, "It'd been far too long since anyone had made me laugh." Yvonne didn't know what to say. "This wasn't supposed to happen," Went on Karen. "I thought they were just feelings I had to hide and one day get over."   
  
"Why?"   
  
"Because you're too good a friend for me to want to jeopardise that. You don't know it, but having someone to do normal things with like have dinner and drink too much has been the one thing to keep me from going under this last year. Until now, you've been the least likely person I know to even contemplate anything with a woman, and no way was I going to threaten our friendship by frightening you off."   
  
"So why now?" Asked Yvonne gently.   
  
"I wouldn't have said a word if I hadn't thought you felt something similar."   
  
"How is it," Said Yvonne, "that one look can be the most erotic thing I've felt in years?" Karen laughed, again remembering her bathtime activity of Wednesday night.   
  
"I'm serious," Said Yvonne, but also smiling. "I think that's what threw me. It was like every nerve I have was on fire. But that in itself was wrong. Like you said, I'm as straight as you get. Or at least I'm supposed to be. Getting turned on just by looking at another woman just isn't me, it's not who I am." Yvonne gestured at the barmaid for a refill and then continued. "Have you ever felt like this before, about anyone else?" Karen took a long drag of her cigarette before answering.   
  
"Once or twice," She conceded.   
  
"Ever do anything about it?"   
  
"No. It was never the right time. Why are you so scared of considering something new?" Yvonne handed a fiver to the blonde who brought their drinks over.   
  
"Men," She said, "In spite of all their egocentric levels of cruelty, irritation and patheticness combined, are ultimately safe because I at least know how not to get hurt by them, even if I don't always put that part in to practice."   
  
"And with women you don't?" Asked Karen.   
  
"I'm not even sure it goes that far," Replied Yvonne. "I have no idea if I could find other women sexually atrractive. I spent most of last night thinking about this. At first I wondered if it was sexual frustration. But it isn't. What I feel seems to come as a package. There isn't much you don't know about me," her thoughts strayed to Renee Williams and the nut-filled salt cellar. "But that hasn't stopped us from gradually getting closer, especially since I got out. You don't know how much it means that you've not let any of that get in the way."   
  
"That's maybe because I don't have any reason to feel threatened by you," Replied Karen softly. "I think, with you, I could learn to trust again."   
  
"Don't you see," Said Yvonne in total anguish. "That's exactly why this just shouldn't happen. I'm not someone you should put that kind of trust in, because I can't sit here and tell you that everything will be okay. I have no idea how I might feel about all this in two days, two weeks, two months. I can't promise you that I won't run from feelings that are scaring me even more than Charlie's threats used too." Then, on realising that she'd unwittingly strayed in to the hitherto unmentioned and definitely unchartered territory of her marriage, she strove to change the focus of the conversation. But Karen hadn't missed this little insight in to a part of Yvonne's life she clearly didn't know much about.   
  
"But what I do know," Said Karen, "Is that you would never intentionally hurt me, and I've never been sure of that with anyone before."   
  
"You don't deserve to be hurt again if I realise I can only go so far with this."   
  
"Neither do you."   
  
"Let's face it," Said Yvonne, getting more miserable by the second, "I'm the one most likely to get cold feet."   
  
"And why do you think I've only ever looked from the sidelines on the one or two occasions I've felt anything vaguely like this?" Asked Karen. Yvonne didn't answer, and karen could see the slight glisten of tears in her eyes. She put out a tentative hand and gently entwined her fingers with Yvonne's. "This is totally new to both of us. We're both taking an enormous risk, and we might make a complete shambles of it. But I think it's a risk worth taking."   
  
"I know," Said Yvonne, the tears beginning to slide unheeded down her face. "I just don't want to give you another reason to avoid all human contact like you have done since Ritchie and Fenner." These words hit Karen like a gunshot. Yvonne was really afraid of hurting her as badly as two of the most evil men she'd ever known had done in the past. Karen moved round the table and sat on the plush-covered bench seat next to Yvonne. As Karen turned Yvonne to face her and gently put her arms round her, Yvonne simply said,   
  
"I'm sorry."   
  
"Just listen to me," Karen said, her cheek pressed to Yvonne's, her own tears threatening to spill. "You will never break me anything like either Ritchie or Fenner did, not ever. Do you really think I'd be sitting here, talking like this if I thought you would? Don't let me ever hear you put yourself in to the same category as either Ritchie or Fenner again." They sat for a while, simply holding each other. Yvonne didn't think she'd ever felt so safe, so cherrished as she did in Karen's arms. It felt almost like coming home, like she'd been destined for all of her life to one day arrive here. Her tears had dried by the time she next spoke.   
  
"We'll have to take this one step at a time," She said, her lips not far from Karen's ear. Karen leaned back slightly to look at her.   
  
"At least we'll both be novices for a change," She said with a smile. Yvonne laughed.   
  
"Yeah, first time for everything." As they made their way out a short while later, the barmaid gazed whistfully after them. She'd seen many couples come and go from her little watering hole, but these two were by far the most interesting she'd ever seen. 


	32. Part Thirty Two

Part Thirty Two   
  
The muttered cursing and swearing wafted upwards like the sulphurous gasses from a grumbling volcano in John Deed's chambers. The workman was crouching down in the corner of the room, his ratchet screwdriver trying to pull the ancient screws through the twisted bottom hinge out of John Deed's front door.  
  
"Cup of tea?" John Deed nervously flitted about feeling like a spare part while the two workmen strained at the reported 'little repair job' due to a 'freak gust of wind that accidentally blew the door back' as was euphemistically described to them.  
  
The other workman scraped out the dust from the hole where the impact of George's entry had driven the door handle into the wall.  
  
"Funny things, gusts of winds, mate." He said. "You look at those fragile leaded light small windows in the landing which haven't got a scratch on them yet this door couldn't be more damaged if Arnold Schwartzenegger had charged at it himself."  
  
"He's Governor of California now," as John Deed's grasp of facts still functioned despite his nervousness in getting the job done before it attracted further comment.   
  
"It's no good, mate." The workman flung down his screwdriver, his wrist giving him agony. "It'll have to get done the quick, noisy way. And you can try and slap a conservation order on me to preserve this door if you like but we're in charge here." And he plugged in a drill to weaken the grip of the screws on the doorframe. They must have been fitted by some ancient eighteenth century craftsman with muscles of iron who had the clear intention that it should withstand the onslaught of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Regrettably, he had reckoned without a fairly slim built modern female barrister with a burning grudge on her mind.   
  
A sharp edged drilling sound grated its way through the hushed respectful quiet of the chambers which made John Deed visibly wince. It was a sunny Saturday morning when he and his fellow judges were accustomed from time immemorial to catch up on their work. Not even Hitler's bombing raids a half century before had dared to drop as much as a firecracker in the vicinity of the judges chambers. The workman engaged in a life or death battle for control was committing the most appalling act of aural blasphemy with that diabolical machinery. To the workman, he was cutting a succession of holes angled in to the base of the screws to break their limpet like grip on the wood and was oblivious of the anxious crowd of spectators . In the meantime, his mate was smoothing out the plasterwork to cover the hole in the wall.   
  
"Deed," Michael Niven once again appeared in the doorway."Some of us are trying to work, you know."  
  
"If all of us can just calm down, calm down." John Deed urged, his very body language, agitated arm movements and heated tones conveyed the total and absolute opposite."Then this will be only a temporary disturbance."  
  
Michael Niven shook his head in bewilderment. He had long had the dubious self-imposed burden of acting as go between for John Deed smoothing out rough edges of antagonisms but this was different. It was not unknown for there to be the occasional sounds of a rather plastered barrister roaming the corridors of learned judgement but, of course, Deed has to go one better than anyone else and has to set standards of whimsical eccentricity that no one in their right minds would dare to even emulate let alone surpass.  
  
"Perhaps a little more application of sideways strength to the screwdriver would help", a rather naïve junior barrister spoke helpfully from behind Niven as others from neighbouring chambers gathered wondering what in hell was disturbing the peace. The workman snorted in contempt at this pathetic amateur.  
  
"Ah there, Deed. Is this some kind of exhibitionist prank that you are playing," the would be hectoring tones of Sir Ian singally failed to act the headmaster.   
  
"Yes, Ian. I was so bored out of my mind after your last endless stream of homilies were inflicted upon me that I thought that the best way to express my depth of my feelings on the subject was to smash my own front door down. And you would be well advised to think that if I have muscles of steel to inflict this sort of damage on the door, heaven help you if your idiotic ramblings cause me to lose my temper once and for all with both of you."   
  
Sir Ian visibly flinched at the concentrated fury and sarcasm of John Deed's pent up exasperation, partly fuelled by an emotion rare to him, embarrassment.   
  
"Yes, well, Deed. That is not what I really came to talk to you about. Your idiosyncratic behaviour is something I have come to expect from you and I would be slightly disappointed if on occasion it were not present." Sir Ian responded, trying to salvage his easily dented sense of dignity by patronising him instead. John Deed smiled to himself inwardly for the first time that day. For once in his life, their disapproval at one of the more colourful chapters in his life was directed at the one incident which he was entirely innocent of creating, well as innocent as much as his admittedly provocative attitude to George throughout the course of the trial.   
  
In Sir Ian's world, the word 'idiosyncratic' expressed a point of view that put the object of the word beyond the pale and stigmatised him. In John Deed's world, the word rather suited his own self image and was a badge to be worn with pride, to be positively flaunted, that's another word that he liked and summed himself up.  
  
"A rumour has been going round the Lord Chancellor's Department that you have added to your scandalous reputation by sending a distinguished barrister down to a common prisoner's cell for contempt of court. Just what signals are you giving out to the general public, not to mention the common people in the gallery."  
  
"I agree, Sir Ian. The dignity of the judiciary of the country should not be dragged down to the level of a trashy television situation comedy show. Especially by a circuit judge who has a daughter who has ambitions to become a lawyer."Lawrence James's harsh tone echoed His Master's Voice.   
  
He must have heard it from Neil Houghton who in turn heard it from George, John Deed concluded. I never thought Ian and his abominable sidekick would have their positive uses but they have one. Perhaps, I really need the Lawrence Jameses of the world to kick against. If they weren't around, would I still have this exhibitionist fix? The last thing he was worrying about was Charlie phoning him up to express her displeasure, when she had temporarily dragged herself from her active social life.   
  
"I have an acute distaste for the language of management consultants as well you know, Ian," John Deed replied in languid tones," but not even barristers or, dare I say it, officials of the Lord Chancellor's Department, are above the law. If the general public has this perception of us, then so much the better. Don't you agree, Mr. James." John Deed smiled meaningfully at Lawrence James.  
  
In turn, a living nightmare relived itself before Lawrence James's eyes of the utter humiliation when he, an authority on high of the Lord Chancellor's Department, was led down to a squalid cell by two common underlings who slammed the cell door on him. Still more nightmarish were the anguished tones of abject humility that had been forced out of him when his first two stiff necked versions weren't good enough for Deed.   
  
"I couldn't possibly express an opinion on the matter." Lawrence James sheepishly and untypically replied, looking down at his expensively shined shoes.  
  
"Coy really doesn't suit you, Mr. James." John deed smiled wickedly.  
  
"Look out, Gov." the workman yelled.  
  
A creaking sound of rending wood announced that the door was toppling over sideways into the corridor. Sir Ian had to do a ballerina like pirouette to avoid the heavy oak door from landing on him. Trust the man to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  
  
"Did you sent one of those pompous barristers down to the slammer?" came the approving voice of the workmen from behind them. "I take it all back, sir. I would be very much obliged if I could have your autograph."  
  
"Certainly." John Deed replied civilly and Sir Ian and Lawrence James saw with hatred that this insufferable man was acting like a pop star as he reached for a pen and notepad and signed it with a flourish. Did the man have no shame or dignity?  
  
"John Deed, is it? And what really happened to cause this damage? You can tell us." The man smiled knowingly at John Deed. This was as good an incident as when he'd seen the replay on television of John Prescott landing one on that guy who threw an egg at him.  
  
"I had an argument with my ex wife, the barrister who I had jailed for contempt of court."   
  
The man grinned at that one while Sir Ian and Lawrence James glared daggers at his shameless lack of discretion, seeing in front of their eyes tomorrow's tabloid headlines. How else can the reputation of this countries hallowed institutions be preserved with dangerous madmen like that Deed fellow around?  
  
"Mr. James, you are, as yet, a married man. I would urge a word or two of caution on you never to have a fall out with your wife or the same could happen to you one day. Likewise, Ian, Lady Rochester might well turn up unexpectedly on your front doorstep one night. George is, as you are aware, slightly built and look at what she's done. Never underestimate the strength and force of a woman who feels slighted or aggrieved. You never know what hurricane force you may unleash."  
  
"We have other business to attend to, Deed." And Sir Ian pushed Lawrence James and they scurried down the corridor and back to the normality of their office at the Lord Chancellor's Department.  
  
John Deed was beginning to feel that this latest escapade pleasingly enhanced his scandalous reputation and one that he would later laugh about over a drink. He resolved that he must phone Charlie about it later on.  
  
"Can my mate have an autograph, too? We'll run this door to the workshop today and have it back in no time. And we'll keep what you said under our hats." The man winked at John Deed as a man of the world who smiled back with equal understanding." You don't mind working in the open for a bit, do you?"  
  
"I have been used to working in the open all my life." John Deed very truthfully replied. 


	33. Part Thirty Three

Part Thirty Three   
  
On the Saturday morning, Lauren crept quietly up the stairs carrying a breakfast tray, with Trigger at her side carrying the morning's newspaper in his mouth. As she pushed open the bedroom door, Yvonne turned over and opened her eyes.   
  
"This is a nice surprise," Said Yvonne, sitting up. Trigger put his front paws up on the bed and dropped the newspaper in Yvonne's lap. "Did you teach him to do that?" She asked, scratching the dog's ears.   
  
"Of course," Said Lauren with a smirk, "He does everything I tell him, don't you boy." At the sound of her voice, Trigger abandoned Yvonne in favour of the wonderful aroma coming from the breakfast tray. As Lauren put the tray down on the bed, which contained croissants straight from the oven, Yvonne's favourite strawberry jam, freshly squeezed orange juice and black, fresh Brazilian coffee, Yvonne said,   
  
"So to what do I owe the pleasure?" Lauren stared at her in utter astonishment. She picked up the digital clock from Yvonne's bedside table which displayed the date as well as the time.   
  
"Mum!" She said in total exasperation. "Don't you know what day it is?" She said thrusting the clock under Yvonne's nose.   
  
"Oh, that," Said Yvonne dismissively. "I was trying to avoid thinking about that."   
  
"It's your first birthday since you got out, therefore we have to do something special."   
  
"Lauren, being forty-eight isn't anything special, believe me."   
  
"So what do you intend to do?" At Yvonne's silence, Lauren reached forward and picked up the address book from the bedside table. "If you're so intent on not even recognising your birthday, then we'll just have to do it for you," She said, flicking through the pages.   
  
"Who's we?" Asked Yvonne, beginning to be slightly worried.   
  
"Only me, Cassie, Roisin and Karen. Got a problem with that?" Hiding her brief flutter of adolescent nerves at the thought of seeing Karen again so soon after their talk yesterday, Yvonne replied,   
  
"Yeah, okay, but nothing major."   
  
Karen was relaxing over a cigarette and the morning paper when the phone rang.   
  
"Karen, it's Lauren, are you doing anything this evening?" Karen briefly smiled at the irony. When did she ever do anything in the evening these days, unless it was with Yvonne.   
  
"No, I've nothing planned," She replied.   
  
"Mum has totally neglected to tell anyone it's her birthday today, and she seems set on ignoring it altogether." Karen grinned, this was typical of Yvonne.   
  
"And are you planning to surprise her?" She asked. Lauren laughed.   
  
"Surprise mum? Are you joking? That'd be impossible. She doesn't want to do anything major, so I thought I'd ask you, Cassie and Roisin over for a barbecue and take it from there."   
  
"Sounds good. What time were you thinking?"   
  
"About seven, and can you bring some wine?"   
  
"Sure, and tell her I said that age is nothing to be afraid of." As Lauren put the phone down and relayed Karen's message, Yvonne sincerely hoped this was true.   
  
Karen started thinking. Just what could she get Yvonne for a birthday present. this, after all, was the woman who had just about everything. Then she remembered how pleased Yvonne had been to have an uninterrupted, lengthy phone call from Denny on Wednesday. What also seemed to connect, was the thought that as she now knew about Grayling's little misleading of her last year, she figured he owed her a favour. Picking up the phone, Karen grinned wickedly to herself, knowing that this time, it was she who held all the cards.   
  
"Neil, it's Karen Betts," She said on hearing his voice.   
  
"Karen," He said, sounding almost jovial. "What can I do for you?"   
  
"I'd like to arrange a home visit for Denny Blood to visit Yvonne Atkins, tomorrow." There was a short but charged silence.   
  
"First," Said Neil, his voice steadily rising. "Why such short notice, and second, exactly what has Daniella Blood done recently to deserve such a privilege?"   
  
"To answer your first question," Said Karen evenly, "I wasn't aware until a few minutes ago that it's Yvonne's birthday today and considering that we're in the middle of the trial of the woman who killed Sharon Wiley, I think it might be the thing to calm Denny down. She's been at boiling point all week so I'm told, and I think this might be the answer."   
  
"Karen, can you give me one very good reason why I should even consider this?"   
  
"Perhaps because you owe me the biggest favour I think you've ever owed anyone," Said Karen quietly.   
  
"Pardon?" Said Neil warily.   
  
"Does the name Michael Hendry mean anything to you?" At his silence she continued. "You know, the man from the CPS who supposedly told you they weren't going to take up my case against Fenner? Only, you forgot to tell me he didn't actually exist, didn't you."   
  
"Who told you this?" Asked Neil furiously.   
  
"I'd have thought that little detail was irrelevant. You managed to swindle me and god knows how many others out of justice, all because you wanted something to hold over Fenner. I think arranging a home visit for Denny Blood is a small price to pay, don't you?"   
  
"Why're you getting so close to Yvonne Atkins?" Good point, thought Karen, cursing herself for not having thought up a decent response for this.   
  
"That's absolutely none of your business," She said without missing a beat. Neil laughed, sounding the happiest she'd ever heard him.   
  
"Don't tell me you've switched sides?" He asked.   
  
"Don't tell me you'd dare to disapprove?" Threw back Karen, thanking god he couldn't see her blushing.   
  
"Just be careful, Karen," He said, sounding about as genuine as on the day he'd expressed so much concern over what had happened with Fenner.   
  
"Neil, you didn't try to warn me off the last Atkins, so don't bother with this one. My private life is my own business, do I make myself clear?" Grayling had to admit that she had a point. He would have hated everyone knowing the utter fiasco that had been him, Di and Tony.   
  
"Point taken," He replied.   
  
"So, do we have a deal?" Asked Karen, "Over Denny Blood's home visit?"   
  
"Yes, I'll put it in writing ASAP and fax you the details." When Karen put down the phone, she knew that however much of a wanker Neil had been to her in the past, his agreeing to do this for her, was his way of apologizing.   
  
When Karen arrived at around seven that evening, she couldn't wait to give Yvonne the surprise of Denny's visit tomorrow. Neil had grudgingly faxed her the confirmation some time in the afternoon. As she turned in to Yvonne's road, she saw Cassie and Roisin in the car ahead of her. She could see Cassie applying lipstick in the driving mirror whilst Roisin sat at the wheel. When they turned in to Yvonne's drive, and Cassie got out of the car, Karen was slightly thrown to see she was only wearing a soft, pale blue bikini which accentuated her tan, with a long tunic-style shirt slung carelessly over her shoulders. For someone, like her, who had been told to make it strictly casual, Cassie looked incredible. On glancing up and catching Karen openly staring, Cassie smirked.   
  
"Oh, don't mind her," Said Roisin handing Cassie a tin that clearly contained a homemade birthday cake. "She just likes to flaunt it at every opportunity." Karen picked up the two large off licence bags and a bouquet of roses from the passenger seat and followed them towards the front door. When Yvonne came to open it, she said with a grin,   
  
"I might have known that an excuse to get pissed would bring you three over."   
  
"Well, quite how you thought you'd get away with not telling us it was your birthday, I don't know," Said Roisin in mock disgust. Yvonne just smiled sheepishly and led them back in to the house. Then, turning back to take in Cassie's appearance, she said,   
  
"I hope you're not going to go anywhere else looking like that?"   
  
"I don't know, oh old and wise one," Cassie said playfully. "It might be fun. Imagine all the women I'd hook in one night."   
  
"Do you have to put up with this all the time?" Said Karen to Roisin with a wink.   
  
"She only does it to wind me up," Said Roisin, secure in the knowledge that Cassie wouldn't stray as easily as she made out she would.   
  
"Would you like me to relieve you of those?" Asked Lauren coming in to the hall, followed by Trigger who lifted his nose to the tin Cassie was holding.   
  
"That's not for you," Said Cassie lifting it out of his reach.   
  
"What've you got in there?" Asked Yvonne, clearly mystified by the tin's contents.   
  
"Possibly the biggest advantage of Roisin still having young children," Replied Cassie, "Is that she's an angel when it comes to making birthday cakes." Yvonne grinned.   
  
"Jesus," She said, "I haven't had one of those since I was a kid."   
  
"Which is why," Said Roisin, removing her precious creation from Cassie's occasionally accident-prone fingers, "You're overdue for one." As Cassie and Roisin moved with Lauren towards the kitchen, Karen held out her red roses.   
  
"Happy birthday," She said with a smile.   
  
"Thank you," Said Yvonne, giving Karen a peck on the cheek. Holding the flowers in one hand, she opened the card. There was a picture of a woman holding up a glass of champagne, and inside, Karen had simply written,   
  
"To whatever future I can give you."   
  
"That's lovely," Said Yvonne, her eyes meeting Karen's for the first time since she'd arrived.   
  
"The best bit's in the envelope," Replied Karen. Yvonne fumbled with the envelope and pulled out Grayling's fax. Unfolding it, she read:   
  
This is to confirm that I, Neil Grayling, Governor of HMP Larkhall, give my permission for Daniella Blood to have a home visit with Yvonne Atkins for the duration of four hours on Sunday August 24th. This visit will be supervised by wing governor Karen Betts...   
  
Yvonne didn't get any further.   
  
"Are you serious?" Asked Yvonne in total wonderment. Karen smiled.   
  
"I'm serious," She said, realising for the first time that Yvonne's happiness was something she wanted very very badly. Being careful so as not to crush the roses, Yvonne put her arms round Karen and squeezed her tight.   
  
"That's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me," She said, a slight tremor in her voice.   
  
"My pleasure," Said Karen softly, returning the hug and not wanting to let go.   
  
Much later in the evening when they'd eaten their way through the wonderful food Lauren and Roisin had prepared, Lauren went away and returned carrying a very large, but very flat package.   
  
"Happy birthday, Mum," She said putting the parcel in to Yvonne's arms. When it was unwrapped, it was revealed to be an enormous painting of Trigger, sprawled sound asleep under his favourite tree. Lauren had had it framed, and it was ready to hang wherever Yvonne wanted it.   
  
"This is beautiful," Yvonne said in awe. "Who did it?"   
  
"I was able to give an artist friend of mine a very nice commission," Said Lauren with a smile.   
  
"When did you get it done? This looks like it would have taken some time."   
  
"You remember when you went out to Spain in June? Well, those three weeks came in very useful. I don't think I've ever known a dog that was better at sitting for a painter than this one."   
  
"You've been teaching that dog too many decadent habits while I've been inside," Said Yvonne with a laugh. Lauren gently retrieved the painting and bore it away in to the house, returning with a bottle of the finest Krug Karen thought she'd ever seen. Yvonne stared at it mesmerized.   
  
"Where did you get that?" She asked slightly ominously.   
  
"Where do you think I got it?" Asked Lauren preparing to peel off the silver foil covering the cork. "From Dad's stash. Just because you won't go near that cellar doesn't mean we shouldn't drink what's in it."   
  
"We haven't had any of that since before I ended up in Larkhall," Said Yvonne, marveling at how Lauren could even bare to be near the one part of the house that still had Charlie stamped all over it.   
  
"Which is precisely why we should open it now," Lauren said softly.   
  
"Will it be cold enough?" Asked Cassie, the only other one there used to drinking champagne on a regular basis from her pre-Larkhall days.   
  
"It's as cold as a morgue down there, even in this heat," Replied Lauren. She eased out the cork, and filled all their glasses. "To Mum," She said raising her glass, "And to many more birthdays she won't be allowed to forget."   
  
"To Yvonne," Said the others raising their glasses. On taking her first sip, Karen realised why it was she'd never before really liked Champagne, she'd clearly only ever had the cheap stuff, never the real thing.   
  
"God, this stuff brings back memories," Said Cassie fondly.   
  
"Oh, what, of the first time you took me out for dinner?" Said Roisin with a smile. Then to the others she said, "I swear she'd picked the most outrageously expensive restaurant in the whole of London." Yvonne laughed.   
  
"Typical Cassie," She said grinning.   
  
"I was nervous," Said Cassie in mild protest.   
  
"You, nervous?" Asked Karen in astonishment. "That I'd like to see."   
  
"Oh, she was," Said Roisin putting an arm round Cassie's shoulders, "She actually ran out of things to say."   
  
"Jesus," Said Yvonne in total disbelief. But Cassie wasn't listening. She'd spied an empty wine bottle that Yvonne had put on the floor out of the way. Reaching to pick it up, she began looking for its cork, and finding one amongst the clutter on the table, she rammed it back in to the bottle.   
  
"Cassie, what're you doing?" Asked Lauren, but it was Yvonne who recognised the gleam of mischief in Cassie's eye. It wasn't unlike the gleam that had preceded the suggestion of fiddling the prison shop.   
  
"Cassie, whatever it is, the answer's no," Said Yvonne, knowing of old what havoc that too clever brain could cause. Cassie simply grinned wickedly round at them all, and began spinning the bottle round between her two hands.   
  
"Cass, no," Said Roisin in half delight half horror, the first one to twig.   
  
"Actually," Said Karen, the next to work it out, "This could be fun." Lauren simply smiled, fairly sure what Cassie had in mind, and thinking this might be her opportunity to sample what she would otherwise never get her hands on.   
  
"Oh, sod it," Said Yvonne, "What are birthdays for but to make a complete tit of yourself."   
  
"Absolutely right," Said Cassie in triumph, as Karen and Roisin began to clear a space in the middle of the table.   
  
"Let's just hope we've all drunk enough not to remember this in the morning," Said Yvonne, but knowing it was a very small hope.   
  
Lauren refilled all their glasses, and Yvonne took a long swig, just knowing she was going to regret agreeing to Cassie's impromptu game of spin the bottle. Cassie laid the bottle down in front of Yvonne.   
  
"Go on," She said, "Birthday girl's prerogative."   
  
"No way," Said Yvonne, "Your idea, so you go first." Cassie didn't need telling twice. Stretching forward a well-manicured hand, she spun the bottle that had previously held red wine. Cassie was quite obviously adept at this game, because the bottle seemed to spin endlessly, glass slithering silently over the cotton tablecloth. When it eventually came to a stop, the cork that Cassie had rammed back in was pointing straight at Karen. Her eyes briefly flicked to Yvonne, as if to reassure her this wasn't for real. The soft, sultry sounds of Annie Lennox drifted out of the open French windows, and as Cassie leaned towards Karen, a predatory smirk of satisfaction moved over her face. Karen really had no idea what to expect. But when Cassie looked in to her eyes with that wicked flash of fun, together with a certain aura of reassurance, she knew she was going to enjoy it. They both found the other's lips soft and pliable, and as skilled at kissing as a professional clarinetist would be with their reeds. Yvonne had to admit that she found the scene disturbingly erotic. These two beautiful women whom she'd known for some time now in different ways, kissing each other like they were posing for a particularly classy erotic painting. not wanting to wind Yvonne up too much, Cassie hadn't allowed her tongue to come in to contact with Karen's, but she couldn't help briefly running her tongue along Karen's lower lip, almost as a way of saying, you'll never forget your first. Karen looked round the table at the others. Yvonne was gazing at her contemplatively, Lauren had a broad grin on her face, showing that she found the whole thing hilarious. But a brief shadow had crossed Roisin's face, and if she'd had hackles, they'd have risen in a stripe along her neck. Slightly wondering just how good an idea this had been, Karen spun the bottle. This time, it landed on Roisin. Karen stood up and moved round the table to where Roisin was sitting. As she planted a chased kiss on Roisin's slightly wary mouth, she murmured,   
  
"You can put the claws away, you know." Roisin smiled sheepishly. She returned the kiss as one who knows their territory isn't under threat. When Roisin spun the bottle, it landed on Yvonne. With a feeling of curiosity, Roisin got up and moved round to Yvonne. Their first touch of lips was a point of exploration for both of them. For Yvonne, because this was the first woman she'd ever kissed, and for Roisin, because she was finally sampling something of the woman whom Cassie had openly fancied when they were inside. The only word Yvonne could put to it was different. It was certainly gentler than any man's kiss had ever been, but it definitely hadn't ignited any spark in her. Roisin gave Yvonne a brief smile of encouragement as she returned to her seat. Karen lit a cigarette and blew a perfect smoke ring up toward the setting sun. This evening was turning out to be far more enlightening than she'd first supposed. Yvonne was interested now, and when she spun the bottle, the cork pointed towards Cassie. With a grin of pure glee, Cassie watched Yvonne walk round behind Karen to get to her. Karen watched in some amusement as Yvonne joined her lips to Cassie's. Under the gaze of Karen, Roisin and a silently laughing Lauren, Yvonne was treated to a similarly expert initiation process as Karen had been. When they eventually came up for air, Yvonne said,   
  
"I won't ask how old you were when you learnt to do that, because it was clearly a long time ago." Roisin laughed with more mirth than she'd felt since the beginning of the game.   
  
"Oh, Cassie's always been precocious in that department," She said, taking a swig from her glass. When Cassie next twirled the bottle, it landed on Lauren.   
  
"This I don't need to see," Said Yvonne as Cassie moved round the table towards Lauren. As Cassie put a hand on Lauren's shoulder, Yvonne picked up a pile of plates and walked towards the house. Thinking that this was as good a time as any to sample Yvonne's gloriously sensual mouth for herself, Karen picked up a couple of empty wine bottles and followed her. Looking back, however, she was enchanted to see Cassie and Lauren kissing like there was no tomorrow, and Roisin of all things, gazing at them totally transfixed. Not quite able to believe the direction her thoughts were leading her concerning those three, and putting it firmly down to too much wine, she walked through the French windows, over the thick lounge carpet towards the kitchen. Yvonne was stacking the plates in the dishwasher and turned to face her.   
  
"I thought it was my turn for whatever you did to Cassie that made her look as if all her birthdays had come at once."   
  
"Oh, did you now?" Asked Yvonne, grinning wickedly when she saw the lust in Karen's eyes. Moving towards her, Karen put the two empty bottles down on the kitchen table.   
  
"You looked sensational with Cassie," Said Karen in a low husky voice, now standing directly in front of Yvonne.   
  
"So says the woman who looked like she could kiss for England," Replied Yvonne locking eyes with Karen. At the first touch of lips, something deep in both of them reached out to forge that irrevocably strong bond of completion. It really was like coming home, like finding the one you'd been destined to be with all your life. Gentle caresses from soft lips soon became lingering explorations, learning the contours of each other's mouths. The small sound Karen made in the back of her throat was the sexiest thing Yvonne had ever heard. As their arms came up and went round each other, Karen felt like this was where she always wanted to be.   
  
"You're amazing," Said Yvonne between kisses.   
  
"So are you," said Karen nibbling lightly on Yvonne's lower lip and then soothing it with her tongue.   
  
"Before you two get totally out of control," Came a mocking voice from the doorway, "We're off clubbing." They turned to see Cassie gazing at them with a soft smile on her face.   
  
"I'm glad to see you're actually wearing something to go clubbing," Said Yvonne, trying to cover up her embarrassment. Cassie looked gorgeous, in a miniscule black skirt and a truly outrageous top that looked to be made of nothing more than tiny purple beads.   
  
"I've persuaded Lauren to stay at ours tonight, so you'll have some peace and quiet."   
  
"Ever subtle weren't you Cassie," Said Yvonne totally unable to keep the smile off her face.   
  
A while later, they lay close together, side by side along the couch in Yvonne's lounge at the other end of the house. Elton John was playing softly on the stereo and they were working their way down another bottle of wine.   
  
"I haven't drunk this much in ages," Said Karen softly.   
  
"No, me neither," replied Yvonne, lighting a cigarette. She was lying in the crook of Karen's right arm, so held the cigarette up for her to take a drag. Neither of them had shared a cigarette with anyone since they were fifteen and sneaking out of school for one, but lying so close, it seemed silly to light two. The words of Nikita gently drifted across the room.   
  
"Your eyes look like ice on fire sometimes," Said Karen, knowing by her voicing of this randomly soppy thought that she'd definitely had too much to drink.   
  
"How do you mean?" Asked Yvonne smiling. Karen reached for the cigarette with her left hand.   
  
"You'll drop it if you're not used to smoking left-handed," said Yvonne raising their mutual addiction to Karen's lips. She could tell by the slight squint in Karen's eyes just how drunk she was.   
  
"It's just, when you're angry, I mean really furious, there's a part of you that's as cold as ice, but if you look deeper, there's a glint that promises rage." Yvonne grinned.   
  
"You've been doing a lot of looking on the sly."   
  
"Do you blame me?" Asked Karen beginning to laugh.   
  
"No," Said Yvonne reaching for her glass that was on the floor by the couch. "It sounds like you've done a lot more thinking about this, us, than you realise." A soft, secretive smile crept over Karen's face as she remembered what too much thinking had led to on Wednesday night. Yvonne then handed Karen her glass. She had to steady Karen's hand when it shook slightly.   
  
"You are completely pissed," Yvonne said with a fond smile.   
  
"Hmm, good isn't it," Replied Karen with a contented sigh.   
  
"You'll have a rotten hangover in the morning."   
  
"Not me," Said Karen, "Hangovers usually creep up on me later on in the day, so I hope Denny behaves herself."   
  
"She will. I can't believe you sorted that."   
  
"Grayling owed me the biggest favour he'll ever owe in his life. I will have to be here, but I can go for a swim or something to give you some space."   
  
"Does Denny know?"   
  
"No, and she won't till I go and get her tomorrow." Putting Karen's glass back down on the floor for her, Yvonne turned and planted tiny kisses along Karen's jawbone until she reached her mouth. The fruitiness of the wine mixed with their own unique taste. Their arms tightened around each other as their kiss seemed to go on and on. They lay there for a long time, listening to the soft music and alternating between kissing and consuming the rest of that final bottle of wine. Karen knew she was far more drunk than on that occasion with Fenner, but she couldn't have felt safer, more relaxed in Yvonne's arms. When the CD reached its end, Yvonne said,   
  
"Do you want to stay?" Karen simply raised an eyebrow. "Not for that," Yvonne grinned, "But you're clearly in no state to drive." When, a short while later, Karen had borrowed a spare toothbrush and the skimpiest black silk nightie she'd ever seen, she lay in Yvonne's enormous four-poster, and listened to her locking up downstairs. When Yvonne joined her in bed, also clad in what surely was no bigger than a serviette, they moved together like they'd been doing it all their lives. Karen's body seemed to mould itself round Yvonne's slightly smaller frame, so that neither could tell where one ended and the other began. As they slid quickly towards sleep, they both took maximum comfort in being held through nighttime's darkest hours. 


	34. Part Thirty Four

Part Thirty Four   
  
John Deed looked furtively over his shoulder as he slipped his way out of the judge's chambers. He was dressed in a long black overcoat with his collar turned up and carried under his arm a curiously shaped black case. It was a chill cloudy evening as he slipped into his car and started to mentally assume his other persona which had been a part of him since he was a law student. However, this was no grotesque evening transformation and dissociation of the tall respectable Dr Jeckyll into the smaller evil Mr Hyde by drinking some evil chemical. Instead, the learned Judge John Deed, steeped in the ways and practices of the law, was invisibly transforming himself into the amateur virtuoso violinist in a string quintet. That part of John Deed's soul was set free as far as his talent with the violin bow searched out the sounds from a classical era. It spoke of people, long since buried in tree shaded churchyards but of music kept alive by such enthusiasts of an order as old as his daytime calling. Not even Jo Mills knew of it, only as a prespoken recorded message that he was not in or an absence in her life that she was not to intrude into. Knowing that John Deed was not immune from the undertow of his upbringing, Jo supposed it to be some male bonding ritual from his adolescence at which point, Jo was not far wrong. John never talked about this side of his personality because of some curious unconscious need to be reticent about this side of his life. He never allowed himself to question just why he had to erect this iron curtain of secrecy.   
  
John Deed sped through the city streets in the direction of the ghastly newish concert hall that some thoughtless town councillors allowed to be erected on the site of its predecessor, which was unfortunately burnt down. It was all concrete buttresses and plate glass asserting its ageing 70s modernity and spawning a smaller hall to one side totally out of proportion. He oughtn't to complain because that hall, the Darwin Room, provided him and his string quartet with a regular venue for the musically discerning as opposed to the bigger Assembly Rooms which were booked for some pubescent girl band whose name he could not remember. Streams of very young boys and girls in strange attire rushed past him, obviously heading off to see the main attraction.   
  
Jo Mills splashed droplets of water over her tired eyes to wake herself up. The week had been pretty gruelling and though she had been long accustomed to the sheer buzz and the highly focussed concentration carrying her through each trial, she felt a total reaction as if she were coming off some powerfully addictive drug. Blankly, she stared at the wall calendar and, with an effort, focussed her eyes on the scrawled words "string quintet" and a circle round today's date. Of course, she'd been in town what seemed like ages ago one Saturday morning and seen a rather artistically drawn Toulouse Lautrec style poster with the advert "An Evening of Schubert" in the Assembly Rooms ticket office. On a sudden impulse, she had bought the ticket which she now discovered crumpled up at the back of her purse, right at the bottom of her handbag.  
  
Half an hour later, having showered and drinking a large black coffee, she was dressed in her most elegant best and was queuing up outside the Darwin Room waiting to shuffle her way out of the biting cold into the warmth behind the double swing doors. She handed in her coat at the cloakroom and made her stately way up the wide carpeted flight of steps and into the brilliant white interior of the suite and her chair which was towards the back. She assumed her place and looked intently at the raised stage and where the performers , according to the tannoy announcement, were to take the stage in two minutes.  
  
John Deed gathered backstage and changed into his most formal black suit and starched white shirt, as were his fellow enthusiasts. In John Deed's eyes, this was a performance where dressing up was the necessary ritual to lend dignity to the music that they were solemnising. His four fellow enthusiasts came from different walks of life but united in a common devotion. A little part of him was glad that not one of the others had anything to do with the law. This was the key to his mental balance and, paradoxically that this greater contact outside the cloistered walls of chambers made him a better judge than his peers. Ready to take to the stage, they took a final sip from a bone china cup of tea laid out on a side table, opened the door and a round of polite applause greeted them and the stage lights pointed them to their allotted places.  
  
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I must say it's incredibly gratifying to see so many of you here. I hope we live up to expectation. We promise for you a quite different evening of music than Girls Aloud Seven in the Assembly Rooms across the way." John Deed's voice ended on a note of typically dry humour.  
  
Jo Mills sat bolt upright in her chair. Surely that well remembered voice must belong to another man in this world. If not, he bears an alarming resemblance to John or else she was suffering from an aural hallucination after a week in court with John's presence always to one side of her and up on stage in his judges chair?   
  
As Jo heard the first sonorous chord struck by the strings which were answered by the light upward arpeggio from the piano, John Deed, in a moment of concentration prepared his answer as first violinist. In a moment of precise control and expressiveness, he arched his bow and launched his free spirit into the piece.   
  
Jo could visualise the sunlight waters and trees shading over the water and the playful way the pianist and the violinists answered each other while the viola and cellos sonorous tone reached up from below. The quick flowing waters rushed headlong into cross cutting currents of music that danced over and under each other. Jo could admire the impeccable way that the violinist's musical themes were answered by the other musicians and that it all flowed into each other in perfect musical harmony. After the lightness and playfulness of the first movement, there was a brief pause. Then, John Deed led the quintet into the more still waters and serenity that was to come and echoed his own sense of peacefulness as they played on. Somehow stage nerves which afflicted some musicians didn't seem to affect him the same way as it did others. Outside his own dancing bow and the light, the darkness into which the audience were sunk, hardly registered except for the respectful silence which gave him all the applause he needed.  
  
That is definitely John Deed on stage out there, Jo Mills said unbelievingly to herself. There is no other person it could be. She grinned to herself that John Deed needed this form of outlet so that he could achieve effortlessly the harmony that he had to fight for in court. Imagine me, George, John ,Sir Ian Rochester and Lawrence James in the same orchestra. The music they would make together would be all chaos and uproar. Only Schoenberg or Mahler would fit the bill.   
  
Jo wondered, firstly at the music which had always entranced her and secondly at the flawless performance. The gentle pizzicato strings were hushed as the pianist described musical patterns that subtly shifted in key in the softer musical passage.  
  
John Deed smiled in satisfaction to himself as he led off the 'trout' theme which was an old German folk tune that Schubert had borrowed for his piece and Jo Mills remembered her old music teacher explaining this to her at school. The pianist gambolled along the same melody line that the violins had sketched out while tiny shards of exquisite notes sounded from the top of the violin's register and embroidered the melody. They were on the home straight now, John reflected, and he was as sharp-eyed and as confident as he had ever felt in his life. It was at moments like this that he thought of himself as a musician first and foremost and everything outside this faded into insignificance as the corners of the hall had faded into the dark.   
  
Jo shook her head in wonder. That's my man, at least some of the time, out there.  
  
Why oh why has John been so shy and reticent about such a supreme gift with which he is blessed. I cannot believe this of the scourge of Lord Chancellor's Departments and the most 'proud to be outrageous' man she had ever met. She had an ear for phrases which stuck in her mind and 'I don't do shy' came into her mind, no doubt a phrase she had unconsciously lifted from something in the media somewhere.  
  
At the last musical flourish, the audience broke into applause which Jo joined in as enthusiastically as anyone, part of her for the virtuoso performance and a part of her for a person she thought she knew intimately displaying a side of him that she never knew existed. And it was not just for selfishly singling out John Deed on his own but in focussing on the other four unknown men who must have similar daytime callings who had moulded in their musical feelings to produce an ensemble triumph. The quintet laid down their instruments and bowed in acknowledgement to the crowd and moved off stage left to the door at the back.  
  
"A splendid performance, everyone. "John Deed's voice resonated through the dressing room after he had overcome the feelings of stiffness in his arms and chin against which his violin had been buttressed all evening. Only now was he conscious of this and these feelings soon passed. Despite the intense concentration of the performance, on top of their daytime jobs, they felt as fresh and alert as anytime in their lives.  
  
"I'm sure your Toulouse Lautec painting helped to bring in the crowds, Andrew old man." John Deed generously praised the pianist who had a triple talent which was something which John Deed felt awesome respect for.  
  
"I don't suppose that it will bring in the backstage groupies like that girl band will attract, John." Andrew replied with a faint smile.  
  
"Good Lord, no. I'm quite sure that Schubert never had to deal with that in his time." John Deed laughed. "I'm just popping out for a second."   
  
  
  
Jo smiled to herself. She couldn't leave the evening just by sliding off to her car and driving home. Her sharp eyes had spotted the stage door to the side of the cloakroom and, after she had collected her coat, she stood there, a glass of wine in her hand and a pen and pencil in her other hand. Mischievously, she stood in wait.  
  
"Excuse me, can I trouble you for your autograph. sir?" Jo Mills asked in her politest most innocent voice that she could contrive."I trust that your future performances will be every bit as satisfying as this night's performance has been."  
  
For the first time in his life, John Deed's facility for words and ability to marshal his thoughts had utterly deserted him. His hand stretched towards the pen and his fingers closed around it as he scribbled his name.  
  
"Why oh why do you hide such a talent like yours under a bushel in the way that you have done for all these years that I've ever known you." Jo Mills's words and the straightness of her gaze reached deep inside his mind and just about held him back from flinching and running." Honestly, John, if I'd never known who you are, I would have felt that I had witnessed a totally brilliant performance. And the fact that the man I thought I know so well…….." And Jo looked soulfully, without reservation at the John deed who was the maestro musician and not the brilliant barrister and mentor that her own pride had to fight with.   
  
John Deed felt bashful, embarrassed and proud of himself in one confusing cocktail of emotions and was still unable to speak. Jo grinned to herself that, for once John Deed was stuck for words yet everything about his demeanour said everything she wanted to know.  
  
"And. of course, you are not too tired to give an encore performance?" Jo's husky tones gradually erased the confusion in his own mind.  
  
"And what were you saying a few minutes ago, John?" Andrew quipped to him." See you at the next rehearsal." To him, John was the charismatic leader of the quintet. He was not sure of exactly what his daytime job was but it couldn't be as soulless as working at a Social Security office where all his workmates talked about was David Beckham and the World Cup. John was an enthusiast about music and someone that he loved balancing his piano technique against John's flawless and expressive violin playing. The woman he was with was very attractive and seemed to have an instant attraction for John, lucky bugger.  
  
"I'll be in touch, Andrew." John promised him." I think that I had better be going." as Jo Mills slipped her arm inside John's.  
  
It was only five minutes later that Jo was strolling to the multistory car park next to John who carefully held his violin case next to him. Up the endless flights of concrete steps and to his car, they walked in silence while from afar, a throbbing sound punctuated by shrill squeals announced that Girls Aloud Seven, or whatever they were called, were still entertaining their fans. In the car, she looked at this indeterminate being sitting next to her still wondering just who he was as they circled their endless way round concrete columns and down the steep ramps in the queue of traffic. Just who was the driver in the car, the judge John Deed whose foibles that she had known so long or the mysterious stranger, the violin virtuoso why she'd somehow pulled from meeting at the stage door?  
  
They chatted casually of everyday things as he drove. Only the street lights and car beams cast a momentary light on the source of the well remembered voice, the one constant feature of this being before fading into blackness.  
  
For his part, John Deed was coming down gently from the delicious intensity of emotion, the jagged Mount Everest pinnacle of sensation that he'd climbed up to in gradual stages. So many times over the years, they had driven back to Jo's cottage but an evening like this made everything special, every sensation somehow heightened. Afterwards, he couldn't remember one word of what he'd said to her in the car but it seemed to make sense at the time, as did everything in the universe that night.  
  
"Who are you?" Jo Mills asked with great curiosity when her front door was shut and even the low lights banished the visual ambiguities of the late night drive.  
  
"You know who I am," came the melodious answer which questioned why she should come out with this peculiar question. After all, in the courtroom devoted to the dry accumulation of facts, such an enquiry was patently absurd for which there was no legal precedent. Yet right now, everything that mattered in Jo's world was totally unprecedented.  
  
Don't even question, came her own answer as the impeccable black suit was draped carelessly on the floor and her best dress alongside it. Back in the comfortable security of her bed, John was the confident lover who seemed even more skilled in the arts of love and giving pleasure than she was accustomed to from him. In a split second, her mind went back to the many years ago when they first went to bed together. Back then it seemed totally and utterly special to be with the man with the virtuoso gifts that she so admired. She was reliving such a night as past and present coexisted in the same place and the same time. The next hour or more was a blissful exploration of the physical and the sensuous which was the perfect finale to the spirituality of earlier on. 'Making music together' was one of the corniest, most absurd expressions Jo have ever heard but right now it made sense. Presently, they lay there, while their breathing returned to normal curled up round each other while the occasional beam from the lonely driver on the road outside flashed by. The gentle flicker of light and the feel of their bodies against each other made this night special.   
  
"So now I know where the pure talent in your hands came from." Jo said, tracing a line down John Deed's cheekbone.  
  
"You don't mind that I've kept this little secret from you all these years," came the just slightly worried question from above her in that very familiar voice.  
  
"You don't have to worry, John." came that very soft, slightly husky voice that had attracted him so long ago. "You are safe with me whoever you are."  
  
And the delicate touch of her hands drew him down to her once again. 


	35. Part Thirty Five

Part Thirty Five   
  
On the Sunday morning, Yvonne woke to the warm contented feeling of being held in a pair of gentle arms. I could get used to this, she thought. Gradually becoming aware that Trigger was trying to nuzzle his way under the duvet to get to her, she reluctantly disentangled herself from Karen's soft warm body and got out of bed. When she let Trigger out of the back door, she stood in the cool, early morning air and breathed in the smell of grass speckled with dew, and watched as the sun slowly made its way over the horizon. She couldn't believe how happy with life she was this morning. In spite of the fact that they were in the middle of her son's trial, Yvonne could seriously say that most of her life was good. Herself and her daughter were safe, at least as safe as a member of the Atkins family could ever be, she lived in a glorious house and materially lacked for nothing, and upstairs, asleep in her bed, was Karen. If, a year ago, someone had told Yvonne that not only would she have kissed another woman, but spent the night in her arms, and be contemplating doing more with her this morning, she'd have laughed in their face. But here she was, Yvonne Atkins, the straightest woman in the business of seduction and conquest, preparing her mind for the possibility that she might in a very short time be making love with a woman, with Karen Betts. The repetition of that kiss last night had been because they'd both had a little too much to drink, and because the mood had been right. Karen had stayed because she'd had far too much to drive and because Yvonne had made it clear that nothing else was on offer, apart from the comfort of not being alone in a cold, empty bed. Slightly shivering, Yvonne came back to her senses to realise that in spite of the rising sun which promised another blisteringly hot day, the morning was still chilly, especially for those who chose to walk round in something that could pass for a large silk handkerchief. Calling softly to Trigger, Yvonne went back inside. Glancing at the kitchen clock, she yawned when she saw that it was only seven o'clock.   
  
When she slipped back under the duvet, Karen turned over towards her. Karen was still in the blissful stage between sleeping and waking when the senses are on overdrive and the brain is still relatively dormant.   
  
"You're cold," Karen said as she came in to contact with Yvonne's body.   
  
"I just went to let Trigger out," Said Yvonne, snuggling up to Karen as if it was the most natural thing in the world.   
  
"What time is it?"   
  
"It's still early."   
  
"I can't believe I'm here," Said Karen after a while.   
  
"No, me neither," murmured Yvonne leaning forward to plant a chased kiss on Karen's slightly parted lips. Karen moved her hand up and gently ran Yvonne's hair through her fingers. Yvonne kissed her again, this time so languorously that Karen's eyes acquired a glazed expression which Yvonne found incredible. Their mouths fought for dominance as they both displayed exactly how they had been able to hook anyone they chose. When Karen began to push Yvonne away, Yvonne looked concerned. At the sight of Yvonne's worried expression, Karen grinned,   
  
"Yvonne," She said, "Please either stop now or take this further." Yvonne's husky laugh made Karen smile.   
  
"And which would you prefer it to be?" Asked Yvonne, almost certain of the answer she would get.   
  
"if you stop now," Said Karen with a frown. "I swear that's the last time I buy you a birthday card." At first Yvonne stared at her, but then she saw the hint of a gleam in Karen's eyes and laughed.   
  
"Now that's what I call a challenge," Yvonne said with a leer.   
  
"That's up to you," Replied Karen.   
  
"Well, seeing as you're in my bed and therefore very special, your wish is my command."   
  
When Yvonne began kissing her again, Karen spared a thought to wonder just where Yvonne had learnt to kiss like that. Yvonne felt a moment of slight trepidation, wondering if she could really pull this off. The only one who had received such an erotic delicacy from her was herself. Oh well, she thought, when did an Atkins ever refuse a challenge. Karen noticed Yvonne's brief hesitation and reached for her hand.   
  
"Would you rather we were doing this the other way round?" She asked. This simple question seemed to bring Yvonne back on course for her goal, to give Karen the time of her life.   
  
"No," She said, "Having never done this before, I just hope I'm good enough, that's all."   
  
Karen gently guided Yvonne's hand to her breast. This was a first for both of them and Karen knew it might take some time before they were both entirely comfortable with the situation. Yvonne's feather-light touch seemed to set a spark to nerve endings Karen wasn't aware she had. When Yvonne grazed her thumb over Karen's nipple, the combination of the friction provided by the silk nightie Karen was wearing, plus the slightly forbidden aura of what they were doing, provoked a low, throaty moan from Karen which Yvonne stifled with a kiss.   
  
"Must be the feminine touch," Said Yvonne, her tone of voice clearly telling Karen that Yvonne was as turned on as she was.   
  
"You're telling me," Was all Karen could say in response.   
  
"It'd be a whole lot better without this," Stated Yvonne, tugging lightly at the equally skimpy piece of black silk Karen had slept in. Heartily agreeing, Karen pulled off the bundle of silk and lay back down. She moved to pull the duvet back over them but Yvonne lifted a hand to stop her. With the help of the rays of the early morning sun that were peeping through the partly open curtains, Yvonne gazed at Karen. From her firm, full breasts to her well defined hips, to her long, tanned legs. Karen simply lay there and watched Yvonne, knowing how eye-catching she could be once divested of the formal suits that usually hid most of what she had to offer.   
  
"See something you like?" Asked Karen dryly.   
  
"Yeah," Said Yvonne, slightly dazed. "You're beautiful."   
  
"And you've got an unfair advantage," Replied Karen, fingering the hem of Yvonne's pale blue nightie, which had ridden almost to the top of her thighs. When Yvonne had discarded her own excuse for a serviette, Karen stared in slight envy at Yvonne's well-toned torso. The benefits of having your own pool, she thought.   
  
"The ten years between thirty eight and forty eight aren't so kind to the body," Said Yvonne, for the first time realising what their difference in ages might mean.   
  
"Yvonne, trust me, you have a body most people would die for." This seemed to bring Yvonne's confidence back on track. Almost as if she were about to run her hand over the Mona Lisa, Karen ran her hand down Yvonne's sternum, and moved to circle a breast. It surprised her how soft female skin was, compared to the coarse, hair-strewn outer shell of a man. Yvonne gently pushed Karen back on to her back and returned to her earlier ministrations. Karen recaptured Yvonne's mouth and nibbled lightly at her lower lip. Yvonne gradually kissed her way down Karen's neck and chest, until she found herself giving one of Karen's nipples the attention it clearly deserved. When Karen felt Yvonne's mouth doing exquisite things to her finest assets, making two of the most sensitive points of her body become as hard and erect as pebbles in a reseeding tide, she couldn't help but gasp.   
  
"Like that, do you?" Asked Yvonne, moving to the other breast so as not to neglect it.   
  
"Too much," Answered Karen, in the sort of strangled, sultry voice that told Yvonne that she was definitely doing something right.   
  
"You can never like anything too much," Stated Yvonne, "It just isn't possible."   
  
"Oh, I don't know, you could easily become addictive." Yvonne trailed her hand down Karen's side, and across her stomach.   
  
"It isn't as flat as I'd like it to be," Said Karen, "But I guess that's the result of doing what amounts to a desk job for the last three years." Yvonne hushed her gently.   
  
"Just relax," She said, "And enjoy it." When Yvonne traced the smattering of hair between Karen's legs, she decided that the best course of action was to do what she'd done to herself for longer than she cared to remember, and to follow Karen's reactions to it. The last thing she wanted to do was to fail at this. Her biggest concern was that Karen should feel right about this. Yvonne didn't especially care about her own pleasure, she simply wanted to make Karen believe that she deserved to enjoy making love again.   
  
When Yvonne moved her hand to the juncture of Karen's thighs, they parted in clear invitation. Yvonne feared that she would act like a fumbling adolescent, but it seemed that the same rules did apply to Karen as they had to herself. At the first contact with her clit, Karen groaned in pure ecstasy. Encouraged by this, Yvonne moved her hand over and around this pinnacle of all Karen's desires. When she teased at Karen's entrance with a well manicured finger, the widening of Karen's legs couldn't have given her a clearer signal.   
  
"Jesus," Yvonne said in surprise, "You're so wet." Karen laughed in that same sultry way she had in the pub all those months ago.   
  
"That's all down to you." Yvonne simultaneously slipped two fingers inside her and resumed alternately nibbling and soothing the sensitive flesh of Karen's nipples. At the feel of three sources of pure pleasure, Karen's whole body jerked. Yvonne's hand increased its speed, and Karen's internal muscles began twitching, a sure sign she was nearing her peak. Yvonne looked up in to Karen's face and saw that she was doing her utmost to keep her eyes open, so as to see the woman who was doing this to her. There was such a depth of emotion in those eyes that it made Yvonne gasp.   
  
"come for me, sweetheart," She said, meaning every word of it. The encouragement to ride the waves of pure passion and the thorough naughtiness of the unfamiliar territory they were in made Karen almost crush Yvonne's wrist between her thighs. She made a sound that was half a laugh and half a sob as her orgasm crashed over her in wave after wave. Her whole body shuddered, and Yvonne found herself cradling a sobbing, shaking Karen. All she could do was to hold her and soothe away the trembling which certainly took its time in abating. Karen didn't think she'd ever cried this hard, but she was so happy. In giving her such an explosive orgasm that was so totally about her, and in giving her back the feelings she never thought she would have again, Yvonne had freed her. She was finally free of that aching chasm of inability to enjoy sex of any kind. She'd thought she would be trapped in that cave of self-destruction for ever, but Yvonne had managed to free her soul from the frightening confines of that lifelong cell of not being able to love again.   
  
"Was it that bad?" Asked Yvonne in a mock serious tone that made Karen laugh through her gradually decreasing tears.   
  
"No," She said, "It was the best I've had in a long time. You've got no idea what you just did, have you? I expected to never enjoy being close to anyone again, but you've set me free." Coming from a woman who used to lock her up, Yvonne caught the full force of the irony of that one. Then Karen gave her a very severe mock glare.   
  
"And you must be the biggest liar I ever met, Yvonne Atkins."   
  
"Why?"   
  
"You told me you'd never done that before."   
  
"So, I haven't, at least not to someone else. The hours between eight in the evening and eight the next morning can get very long and lonely, you know."   
  
"I see," Said Karen, her breathing beginning to return to normal. "so that's what happens in all that spare time." Then Karen remembered that she'd been the only one to achieve release so far that morning. She gave Yvonne a long, enticing kiss.   
  
"I doubt if I'll come up to that standard," She said with the wickedest grin Yvonne had ever seen. "But I'll try."   
  
"No," Yvonne said softly. "There's time enough for that." They simply lay, holding each other's warm, soft-skinned bodies. They could hear the birds through the open window, and see the sun as the breeze gently flapped the curtains. They lay covered by a thin sheet, the duvet having been discarded long ago. No words needed to be said. The enormity of what had happened that morning was slowly beginning to sink in. As Yvonne had said, there was time enough for Karen to do the same to her later. All that mattered was how complete they felt, how safe and cherished they were in their own secluded world as they gently drifted towards sleep.   
  
Karen woke around ten, to see Yvonne gazing at her. She stretched luxuriously.   
  
"That is way too sexy," Said Yvonne with a smile.   
  
"Good," Said Karen, leaning over to plant a light kiss on Yvonne's lips. Then glancing at the clock on the bedside table, she said, "I'd better go. I've yet to break the news to Denny that she's coming to see you this afternoon."   
  
"I can't believe you did that," Said Yvonne, "I don't deserve you."   
  
"After this morning," Said Karen with a grin, "I'd say the shoe was on the other foot."   
  
"Nice to know I'm good at something," Replied Yvonne.   
  
"Would you like me to return the favour?" Asked Karen, running a lazy finger over Yvonne's shoulder. A guarded look came over Yvonne's face.   
  
"Sorry," She said, "But no. Making love to you was probably one of the most enchanting things I've ever been part of, but it might take me a little while before I want the same." Karen was deeply touched.   
  
"You don't need to explain," Karen said gently. "You just let me know when you're ready for the best time of your life." As Yvonne stood at the front door in a thin dressing-gown and watched Karen drive away, she wondered just what she'd done to deserve something, someone so special. What she'd given to Karen earlier that morning hadn't been wrong, it'd been right, it'd been full of lust, happiness and possibly the beginnings of love. As she brewed herself some coffee, she heard Lauren open the front door. She poked her head round the kitchen door.   
  
"You slept late, mum?" Was Lauren's greeting.   
  
"Yeah," Was all Yvonne could say in reply, not quite sure how much she wanted her daughter to know of the morning's events. "Are you going to be here this afternoon?" She asked, wanting Lauren to stay for when Denny arrived, but at the same time knowing that Lauren might not be wild about the idea.   
  
"I might be," Said lauren guardedly. Lauren was further unsettled a while later when, on going in to her mother's bedroom to borrow some hairspray, she observed that the bed was unmade on both sides, undoubtable proof that her mother had spent the night with Karen. 


	36. Part Thirty Six

Part Thirty Six  
  
Denny woke up on yet another Sunday morning which wasn't any different from any other. The morning felt crap and the rest of the day wasn't going to get  
  
better. She just had that feel about things. There, in the top bunk opposite, the large mound under the shabby quilt contained Al's sleeping body. The  
  
sun shone in through the steel bars high up in the cell but that didn't make her feel warmer inside or feel any better about herself.  
  
Karen parked her green sports car in her usual spot and handed in her keys to a surprised Ken on the gate who wondered why the Wing Governor was in on a  
  
Sunday lunchtime and why she seemed so happy with herself. Any screw turning in on a Sunday was only happy when he'd filled in his overtime claim form  
  
and figured out how much it would rake in. She walked rapidly across the courtyard before reaching for her bunch of keys and wondered why such a grey,  
  
prosaic scenery could look so sharp, so well defined and new.  
  
"Morning, maam. Surprised to see you in today." Bodybag's suspicious tones enquired." Come to see how the troops are going on."  
  
The last remark was her muted version of 'Have you come to spy on us?' but not so muted that Betts wouldn't get the hint.  
  
"I've only come in to do a spot of work that I couldn't do at home," Karen replied quite truthfully leaving Bodybag to draw the quite erroneous conclusion  
  
that she would be working in the office. She had that delicious lazy slightly sleepy self satisfied feeling from a night with Yvonne that nothing could  
  
shake. Bodybag was just a minor irritation that could float off elsewhere and take her gloom and misery with her. Perhaps she hadn't been getting it since  
  
well before her Bobby died and that was what made her crotchety and determined that everyone else would be made miserable and sexually frustrated too.  
  
Denny's hopes and fears for the trial had been seesawing all week as her life was on hold until the trial was over. At least she would know the best or  
  
the worst. The best moment this week came when she heard Yvonne's familiar reassuring voice over the phone midweek. Yvonne could take one look at her and  
  
see behind that hard angry surface the scared or perplexed child underneath. Her blend of humour and warmth could lift that black mood of depression and  
  
cheer her up, even from the unlikely setting of Betts's room. It did her good to hear that familiar voice over the phone when Yvonne's as much as if she  
  
was there in the flesh was with her even if it were out there and disembodied. Looking back on that day, it seemed strange to her to be hauled into the  
  
room where, time after time, an angry faced Wing Governor dispensed one way justice over her head as a preliminary to two screws grabbing her by each shoulder  
  
and hauling her off down to the block. Miss Stewart sent her there once and it did her head in, shut away on her own away from human contact. Nothing scared  
  
her more than that.  
  
"Denny Blood, will you report immediately to Miss Betts's office." Bodybag leaned over her while she was chatting to Al at breakfast table. Bloody hell,  
  
the frigging screws won't let her even light a fag after luncht when she was dying to light up.  
  
"What's it this time." Denny demanded aggressively. She ran over in her mind exactly what she might have done in the last week that some bitch might have  
  
grassed her up for. Betts had been all right in letting her talk to Yvonne over the phone from her room but that same ingrained reaction kicked in every  
  
time.  
  
"You'll find out soon enough when you come with me." Bodybag replied enigmatically. In truth, she was as curious as anyone else as since when did Madam  
  
change the habits of a lifetime and come in on a Sunday. She had just appeared, breezed in unexpectedly from nowhere. Bodybag went in first while Denny  
  
waited outside and worried.  
  
"Will that be all?" Bodybag asked suspiciously."Will you need me for later, only my shift ends in a few hours time and I'm off to cook my dinner."  
  
"That will be all, Sylvia," Karen smiled."Except……."  
  
"Except what" Bodybag irritably  
  
"…..Except that I shall be out for the day, on prisoner escort taking Denny Blood to Yvonne Atkins's house for the day. Don't worry, I'll be responsible  
  
for security and I won't make any extra work for the late shift." Karen told her with perfect aplomb.  
  
"Daniella Blood," Bodybag started to say but her mouth stuck fast opened in anger, as the words never came. Other than to question the decision openly,  
  
there was no specious argument that she could use.  
  
"Ah, Denny, take a seat," Karen greeted her with a dazzling smile when Denny had knocked to enter and Bodybag stomped off past her, moaning under her breath.  
  
Denny was still looking warily though her first impressions of Miss Betts was that she seemed to be in a good mood. Perhaps the worst that will happen will  
  
be a warning.  
  
"Denny, how would you like the idea of a day out under escort to Yvonne's house for her birthday." And Karen's wide smile was focussed on her.  
  
"That's cool, Miss Betts." Denny's reply contained restrained enthusiasm though it sounded too good to be true. "But when's the day?"  
  
"Like, twenty minutes time to get yourself ready and I'll be the escort. Does that sound good enough."  
  
"Wicked." Denny could only react with her most overused word which covered a multitude of feelings. This seemed too good to be true but Miss Betts was telling  
  
her this one. If nothing else, Betts was good for making good any promise that she made, good news or bad. At least bleeding Fenner wasn't going to be  
  
the escort.  
  
"Have you got everything you need for the day,"Karen asked a very excited Denny looking precisely like her eight year old former self out for the day for  
  
a treat and dressed in a smarter outfit than her inevitable combat trousers and sleeveless T shirt. Denny wasn't into makeup and never had been apart from  
  
that mysterious phase when for a short while, she paraded around , all dolled up and in a mini skirt.  
  
"Sorry to have to put the handcuffs on, Denny." Karen said very apologetically. Denny nodded in acknowledgement as this was still Larkhall and to her, Miss  
  
Betts played fair enough.  
  
Denny looked round in Karen's green sports car and this, to her was her first taste of luxury and another was when Karen slipped off the handcuffs just  
  
outside prison with a smiling remark that they would look a sight handcuffed together for Yvonne's birthday.  
  
Denny lay back in the luxury of the car seat, her hand resting on the wound down car window and luxuriating in it all. Karen was softly singing to herself  
  
an Elton John song, as it brought back the flavour of last night. To Karen, that song would be indissolubly linked to a feeling of carefree happiness and  
  
freedom.  
  
"I saw you dancing out the ocean  
  
Running fast along the sand  
  
A spirit born of earth and water  
  
Fire flying from your hands  
  
In the instant that you love someone  
  
In the second that the hammer hits  
  
Reality runs up your spine  
  
And the pieces finally fit  
  
And all I ever needed was the one  
  
Like freedom fields where wild horses run  
  
When stars collide like you and I  
  
No shadows block the sun  
  
You're all I've ever needed  
  
Baby you're the one  
  
There are caravans we follow  
  
Drunken nights in dark hotels  
  
When chances breathe between the silence  
  
Where sex and love no longer gel  
  
For each man in his time is Cain  
  
Until he walks along the beach  
  
And sees his future in the water  
  
A long lost heart within his reach "  
  
Denny listened while Miss Betts was singing half to herself and wondered lazily what was making her feel so good. Up till then, screws didn't have a private  
  
life. They existed only in uniform apart from the gaps in time between which they passed in or out of the prison gates. This woman seemed different and  
  
was taking her very kindly to Yvonne's house when she might have other things to do. That was nice of her.  
  
They passed out of the snarling traffic noises and stop start of city streets, out towards spacious suburbs.  
  
"There's a florist, Miss Betts. You've got to let me buy some flowers for Yvonne.  
  
Karen smiled indulgently as her parent days instinct kicked in and she trailed after an excitable Denny as she wavered indecisively between various ideas.  
  
The perfume of the flowers in the shop, in itself was a novelty. Eventually, the gift wrapped flowers were laid down carefully in the back seat of the  
  
car and Karen carried on with the dreamy ride. Presently, the car whizzed into the front drive of absolutely the largest house Denny had seen in her life  
  
which towered over her.  
  
"Fucking hell" Denny breathed in total gobsmacked wonderment when she stood outside the car looking all around her, her eyes almost refusing to believe  
  
the evidence in front of them. Karen smiled understandingly, remembering her own feelings a lifetime ago when she had first really entered Yvonne's world  
  
for the first time. Denny's feet carried themselves slowly past the expensive cars while she looked all around her at the world she had suddenly been pitchforked  
  
into.  
  
The front door opened and a riotous splash of luxurious colours and smells hit Denny in the face but in the middle of it was Yvonne as she had always known  
  
her. She held out her arms and Yvonne gave her a big hug. All Denny knew was that Yvonne sounded the same looked the same as she always was.  
  
"Happy birthday.man" Denny eventually said."If you'd told me before, I would have got you something better than this." Denny said with more confidence than  
  
she felt.  
  
"These flowers and having you here, Denny, is enough. You don't need to worry." Yvonne said softly, knowing exactly how Denny was feeling. When they were  
  
all at Larkhall together, they all had the same cell, suffered the same hardships, it was just that Yvonne was able to sneak or legally get in anything  
  
from guitars to miniature bottles of scotch. This was different.  
  
"You'll know my daughter, Lauren. She's no stranger to you." Yvonne gestured to her daughter Lauren who was politely standing back, looking questioningly  
  
at her.  
  
For the first time, Denny took in the surroundings and the sheer sensation of size stretching away from her hit her, after years accustomed to the close  
  
confinement of her cell, threading her way past crowded corridors, up and down narrow metal staircases and keeping her arms close to her body. The staircase  
  
in the hall was impossibly wide, and carpeted, winding its way round to a top half of the house she could only guess at. Expensive pictures hung upon the  
  
walls.  
  
"Come through this way and I'll fix you and the others a drink." Yvonne gestured.  
  
In a daze, Denny could only follow the others blindly into the lounge where she sank into an enormous armchair that seemed to curl itself around her. She  
  
leant back while a drink was put into her hand and she was offered a cigarette. She inhaled a lungful of air deeply and relaxed with a rush into the scenery  
  
that she now found herself in. It wasn't just the nicotine but also the feeling of luxury of the house. It wasn't just the sip of beer that went to her  
  
head as she chattered away in a much more expansive Denny than she was used to being for a long time.  
  
A large black Alsatian dog made its noisy audience, wagging its tail and made its way towards Denny sensing a friend and asking to be made a fuss of. Denny  
  
was in her element and patted him.  
  
"Since he's made a friend of you, Denny, I ought to explain that his name is Trigger." Karen smiled by way of explanation to Denny who had found another  
  
little fragment of experience from the outside world that she had not experienced since she lived at the Children's Home, one good memory of the place  
  
that she had. It reminded her forcibly of her first love Jo Hall, the social worker in charge who had a similar dog.  
  
"Excuse us, Denny, while Trigger takes over as usual," Yvonne smiled.  
  
"I'll take him out for a walk in a bit, Mum. He could do with some exercise and it's still your birthday." Lauren offered graciously. In reality, she wanted  
  
to clear her head and get her head round the thought that Mum and Karen had slept together last night. She was a bit conscious that all the focus of attention  
  
was going to Denny while Lauren, who did everything uncomplainingly was being marginalised. "I'll be back a bit later on. See you Mum."  
  
Trigger, on hearing the magic word 'walk' had trotted off ahead and returned gripping between his teeth the lead and made a fuss of Lauren in turn who was  
  
now his clear favourite.  
  
The room quietened down after Trigger took Lauren for a walk and Denny had more chance to take in her surroundings. Facing her, was the most enormous fireplace  
  
that she could imagine outside a photo shoot in OK Magazine. To one side was a luxurious sofa that Karen and Yvonne naturally settled into.  
  
If Yvonne and Karen Betts aren't shagging, thought Denny, then dress me up in a bleeding wedding dress to get hitched to a guy in a top hat and tails. There  
  
is most definitely a feeling between each other and the way that Karen Betts behaves that she is at home here, that she belongs with Yvonne.  
  
"I can't believe it, man." Denny said, smiling and shaking her head."I kind of thought you'd have a nice house but I didn't expect anything like this."  
  
"It does take some getting used to, Denny." Karen smiled.  
  
This is a different woman than the Miss Betts that I am used to, Denny thought. This woman is so relaxed and so cool, Denny thought admiringly. There was  
  
a natural flair and sophistication with which Karen carries herself, and a real kind heartedness. This was a woman who if she were reborn and had the chance  
  
of reincarnation, then she might want to grow up and be like.  
  
"How are you getting on. I hope you have made dead sure that you haven't let some bastard get near to you like you promised."  
  
"You can take it as read, Denny," Yvonne smiled smugly to herself,"That the chance of that happening right now is even less than when I was at Larkhall  
  
and the only decent man around that way was the bleeding vicar." The way that Karen looked sideways at Yvonne looking like the cat that had lapped up the  
  
cream removed Denny's last doubts, improbable though the idea was on Yvonne's past public reputation. However, she kept her thoughts to herself.  
  
The three of them sank back into feelings of deep content that a sunny, lazy afternoon can bring in. The afternoon sun shone in through the windows and  
  
Denny felt more than anything that she was in the family situation that she had longed for all her life. She had once seen one of her friend's father drive  
  
up to the children's home she lived in and watch them drive away forever in the car and wished it was happening to her. Now she bathed in the warm glow  
  
of being wanted while they chatted away inconsequentially.  
  
They drifted out onto the terrace and they fetched out a cold buffet salad out by the swimming pool and a bottle of good white wine. The sun beat down gloriously  
  
down on what was a natural heat trap on a summer day. Just then Lauren materialised out from nowhere from the trees at the end of the swimming pool and  
  
a very happy Trigger had more humans to adopt.  
  
It was heavenly for them all to watch the time go by and all seemed peaceful and serene while the sun described its arc inch by inch across the sky.  
  
"I want to have some time with my mother," Lauren said slightly aggressively suddenly out of nowhere." Nothing personal to you two."  
  
That was the one very slightly edgy note that spoiled the mood of perfection. On the face of it, Lauren was a very strong, highly independent woman who  
  
had been used to going her own way, not least when Yvonne had been locked up for several years at Larkhall. Now, Lauren had the air of either being possessive  
  
towards her and 'hands off' to any intruders or else simply wanted to have a family stand up row on their own. Karen knew the signs from past experience  
  
though a bit of her wondered if Lauren was beginning to catch on to them.  
  
Denny started to become slightly uneasy when Yvonne was being taken away from her  
  
when Karen turned to her to reassure her.  
  
"We ought to give them ,Denny. Tell you what, I'm going to change into my bikini and I'm going for a swim. I'll keep you company here. Promise." And Karen  
  
looked directly into Denny's eyes to promise her that she would not desert her at any price. The irony of Denny actually wanting her prison escort not  
  
to desert was not lost on Karen however opposite she appeared to be at that time. Karen had not really abandoned The Wing Governor on prison escort side  
  
of the situation but that she knew how to be in control of a situation with very loose reins  
  
Denny breathed a huge sigh of relief and sipped her goblet of white wine as the reassuring shape of Karen in a black bikini grew bigger and more real as  
  
she approached her. It was Denny's desperate need for a mother figure that caused her first feelings to be of reassurance. Only as Karen came closer did  
  
Denny wonder why in hell had she never realised how stunning she looked and how lucky Yvonne was.  
  
Karen dived off into the pool and a slow leisurely backstroke took in gradual pulses of body and leg movement across the width of the pool. She looked up  
  
at the blue sky and the trees leaning over above her.  
  
"You'll hit the side, man" Denny called out  
  
Karen only laughed, twirled her body round in time and splashed water over Denny's attempted sun tan.  
  
"You bitch, you die." Denny called out jokingly.  
  
"You'll have to catch me first," Karen laughed and they started a game of catch which passed the time until a silent Yvonne and a very tensely silent Lauren  
  
emerged, not speaking to each other. This did not look good.  
  
Karen was feeling rather chilled and announced that she was going to get changed.  
  
"Do you want a hand with anything, Karen." She asked anxiously.  
  
Karen smiled and nodded. A part of her was enjoying having Denny around like the daughter that she had never had.  
  
It was later that Denny became painfully conscious that time was running out and what she had got was going to slip away from her. Yvonne's house was going  
  
to follow a separate path from her life and no matter that she was going to get her freedom in the end, the time that felt like an infinity away and was  
  
as if the day of freedom might be never.It never showed on her face except to Yvonne's sharp eyes who made an especial effort to laugh and joke when they  
  
had all assembled together and Yvonne and Lauren had at least kept their private row to themselves. The shadows cast by the trees on the swimming pool  
  
lengthened and the sun dipped below the line of the trees as they chatted away and smoked and drank.  
  
"We'll have to be going soon, Denny," Eventually Karen said softly and sadly.  
  
"I'm sorry I've not spoken to you more earlier," Lauren said, trying to be her nicest while pointedly ignoring Yvonne." I've been trying to sort out some  
  
family matters."  
  
"Same for me, Denny.And thanks for the flowers. I'll be thinking of you."Yvonne said with a slightly strained smile."Come here." And Yvonne gave a big hug  
  
to Denny who had never withheld her affection from her. It helped her out as well as Denny.  
  
The sun was low when a miserable Denny climbed into Karen's car and rewound the climb up to the pinnacle of pleasure that she had climbed. As Karen pulled  
  
into the courtyard of Larkhall prison, Denny turned round and asked her with pleading in her eyes.  
  
"Do I have to go back?"  
  
It tore at Karen's heart to tell her the truth however unpalatable it was. She knew no other way than the truth though.  
  
"I'm afraid you have to. But you've got Karen Betts looking after you from now on even though I have to be Wing Governor as well."  
  
Denny gave Karen's arm a quick squeeze for telling her that she had gained something this day.  
  
"Come on, I'll have to put the handcuffs on."  
  
Denny held out her hand compliantly while Karen and Karen rattled with the keys as normal and let them in to the dingy cramped prison wing that was her  
  
reality.  
  
Karen was mildly surprised to see Sylvia pass by in a tearing hurry.  
  
"I left something in my locker that I needed. Don't think I come to this place for pleasure, Miss Betts."  
  
"No of course not," Karen smiled broadly at the prospect.  
  
Then Sylvia peered closer at her trying to work out what was passing through her mind. Clairvoyant she is not and never will be.  
  
"You look like the cat that got the cream." She said at last.  
  
Got it in one, Sylvia, for once in your life though you don't know it. Then she escorted Denny back to her lonely drab dark cell and locked her in for the  
  
night.  
  
"The time will come, Denny. Trust me." She said urgently for herself and Denny who smiled through her tears. 


	37. Part Thirty Seven

Part Thirty Seven   
  
When Karen arrived at court on Monday morning, she looked fresh, serene, as if a light had been turned on somewhere inside her. After dropping Denny off yesterday, Karen had gone home, opened all her windows, including the doors on to the balcony, and allowed the early evening air to permeate her soul. She'd put on some soppy music, sat out on her balcony and allowed her memories of that morning to replay over and over again. Nothing could have dulled her mood, not even the thought that the very next day, she would have to listen to Ritchie justifying his worming his way under all her defenses. When she sat down between Cassie and Yvonne in the public gallery, Cassie said,   
  
"You're looking extra specially radiant this morning?" Karen quietly laughed. Yvonne briefly touched Karen's hand.   
  
"She's right," Yvonne said softly in her ear. Karen simply smiled.   
  
When Ritchie took the bible in his right hand, Karen was shocked to see how thin he was. No longer did he look like the charismatic, young stud who'd figuratively picked her up last year. He had the all too familiar prison pallor and Karen felt a brief moment of pity for him. George moved forward to open her case.   
  
"Mr. Atkins," She began. "How did you first come to be at Larkhall prison in May last year?"   
  
"I was visiting my mum," Said Ritchie, and Karen reflected that whilst his looks might have changed somewhat, his voice still held the old seductive charm that had lured her to his bed.   
  
"And how long had it been since you'd had contact with your mother," Went on George.   
  
"About four years."   
  
"And why was this?"   
  
"Here it comes," murmured Yvonne, knowing that George would exploit this event time and time again.   
  
"The last time I saw my mum, before I visited her in prison," Said Ritchie, making sure he captured the attention of every member of the jury, "She stood and watched while my dad threatened to nail me to the warehouse floor."   
  
"She didn't do anything to stop this?"   
  
"How fucking thick can you get?" Muttered Lauren, "Like anyone could have stopped dad from doing anything."   
  
"No," Went on Ritchie. "My mother didn't even think of standing up for me."   
  
"Jesus," Said Yvonne in disgust. "You had more chance than I did." Karen went to take Yvonne's hand but on receiving a monumental frown from Lauren, she withdrew.   
  
"So why, after four years did you decide to make contact with your mother?" Asked George.   
  
"I figured that with dad dead, it was safe to come home," Replied Ritchie. "My sister Lauren had everything," He continued, "And I thought I was entitled to some of it."   
  
"Yeah," Said Lauren, her anger quietly rising. "But your sister Lauren worked for it."   
  
"Did you send your mother a bouquet of flowers?" Asked George.   
  
"Yeah, the best way to win mum over's always been with flowers."   
  
"Yeah, and I bleedin fell for it an' all," Said Yvonne deprecatingly.   
  
George moved to the evidence bench and picked up the card from the bouquet.   
  
"What words did you instruct the florist to write on the card?"   
  
"I love you, Mum. No more, no less."   
  
"And did you ask your mother for money?"   
  
"Yeah. Well, let's face it, mum's rolling in the stuff."   
  
"And what was her response?"   
  
"She got Lauren to give me fifty grand. Fifty grand, that's like a fiver compared to what they're sitting on." Yvonne winced.   
  
"Now, please would you tell the court about your brief liaison with Karen Betts?" George wanted to move him swiftly away from pure recrimination.   
  
"She was the sexiest woman I'd seen in a long time," Said Ritchie, a briefly fond expression on his face. "I've never met anyone who liked it as rough as she did." Karen blushed scarlet and wanted nothing more than to disappear off the face of the Earth. Wondering if Ritchie had happened not long after Karen had been raped by Fenner, Jo began to put two and two together as to why Karen had so easily fallen in to Ritchie's trap.   
  
"That will do, Mr. Atkins," Deed's voice resonated round the court. George scowled at John and returned to her witness.   
  
"Mr. Atkins, was it you, or was it Karen Betts who made the initial contact?"   
  
"It was Karen Betts," Said Ritchie, and the way her name rolled off his tongue made Karen's skin crawl with a combination of disgust and remembered excitement.   
  
"Can you tell the court how this was done?" Asked George. Ritchie smiled for the first time that morning. He was clearly aware of Karen's presence in the public gallery, and was putting on this show just for her.   
  
"My mum wanted my phone number, and I asked Karen for a pen for mum to write it down. She must have overheard me saying my mobile number and either remembered it or wrote it down herself." Karen took a breath to protest that Ritchie had said his number louder than necessary to make sure she heard it, but Cassie put a quick, restraining hand on her arm. "Later that night," Went on Ritchie, clearly enjoying himself. "She sent me this fairly suggestive text message." Now Karen really did want to hide. She turned her face away from Yvonne and found herself looking straight in to Cassie's eyes. About to turn away from her too, she felt Cassie's hand on her arm again and heard her say softly,   
  
"Hey, calm down." Looking for any non-judgmental, inanimate object to focus her gaze on, Karen's eyes briefly met John's. He gave her a reassuring smile as if to say, we've all made fools of ourselves, it happens. Ritchie continued his lurid tale.   
  
"So, I texted her back. Who wouldn't for someone with legs like hers."   
  
"That's it," Muttered Karen. She got up, moved passed Cassie and Roisin and walked out of court as quickly as possible. She ran down the stairs, through the quiet foyer and out in to the sunshine. There was a fountain outside the court, with benches near it and she sat on one of them, feverishly looking for her cigarettes. She thought Yvonne probably wouldn't even want to look at her again after this, never mind anything else.   
  
Back in court, George was saying,   
  
"I have submitted the mobile phone records of Karen Betts' mobile to substantiate this evidence. 3K in your bundle, My Lord."   
  
"Go and see if she's all right," Said Yvonne quietly to Cassie. It had been something of a shock for Yvonne to hear how Karen had acted with her son, but she also knew that Karen would probably be afraid of Yvonne's reaction. As soon as Ritchie's testimony was over, she'd go and find Karen to put her right on that score. No-one as pathetic as her son would make Yvonne think twice about her budding relationship with Karen.   
  
When Cassie walked outside, she could see Karen smoking, with a brooding expression on her face. She sat down next to her.   
  
"Yvonne asked me to make sure you were okay," Said Cassie opening the conversation. Karen laughed mirthlessly.   
  
"I don't know why," She said taking a long drag.   
  
"Perhaps because she's concerned about you?" Ventured Cassie sardonically.   
  
"Yeah, and she's just heard her son describing A how I threw myself at him, and B, what I was like in bed."   
  
"You obviously don't know Yvonne as well as you think you do," Said Cassie quietly. "When it comes to people, she judges them on her impressions and hers alone. Nobody can tell Yvonne what someone's like, she finds that out for herself. She'll no more listen to what Ritchie said than she would Fenner. You need to have a bit more faith in her, and a lot more in yourself." Cassie also lit up a cigarette.   
  
"I can't believe I fell for it," Said Karen, all her fury directed at herself. "He was so charming, so..." She couldn't find the right words to describe the effect he'd had on her. Cassie finished her sentence.   
  
"He was so different from Fenner," Cassie said quietly. Karen blew a smoke ring at a passing pigeon.   
  
"Probably," She conceded. Cassie took a deep breath.   
  
"Look, I don't know what happened with Fenner, and I don't want to know. But I'm guessing you were ripe for the picking where Ritchie was concerned, and that isn't your fault. It's his for being a total wanker. After Maxi Purvis, Yvonne might be one of the least forgiving people I've ever known, but she won't let this get in the way of whatever you and her have got going for each other, because for a start there's nothing to forgive, and second, you're too special to her." Karen was deeply touched by this.   
  
"She's turned me in to a total neurotic," Said Karen with a smile.   
  
"She does have that effect on people," Said Cassie, remembering the time she'd been utterly humiliated to realise Yvonne knew how she'd felt about her.   
  
"Mr. Atkins," Continued George. "Did you plant the gun in Karen Betts' handbag, the last time she stayed with you in your hotel room?"   
  
"No," Was his unequivocal answer.   
  
"Do you have any idea who did?" Asked George, playing on the fact that they only had circumstantial evidence against Ritchie on this point.   
  
"Your guess is as good as mine," Said Ritchie, the charm up to full strength.   
  
"You lying bastard," Muttered Yvonne.   
  
"Now, Mr. Atkins, as I know the prosecution will ask you this if I don't, why precisely did you phone the prison and ask for Snowball Merriman on the fifteenth of June last year?"   
  
"I'd known Snowball for quite a long time before she got sent to Larkhall, so I kept in touch with her. She told me that the vicar was a bit of a push-over and that he'd let her use his phone. All I said was, Is Snowball Merriman there, that hardly constitutes aiding and abetting a criminal, does it?"   
  
"Actually, Mr. Atkins," Replied Deed, "I think it does."   
  
"Well, good for me you're not on the jury then, isn't it."   
  
"On the jury I may not be," Said John nailing Ritchie with the forcefulness and power of his position and personality. "But there's the slightest possibility that I may be the judge to sentence you." If Yvonne hadn't known better, she would have questioned whether or not that was really Charlie sitting down there. Ritchie was his father through and through.   
  
George glared at John, daring him to threaten her witness again. Jo simply gave her a slightly smug smile, as if to say, keep going, let your witness dig himself in to as big a grave as possible.   
  
"Mr. Atkins," George continued. "Please would you tell the court about the day on which you were shot?" Ritchie gave the most theatrical shudder Yvonne had ever seen, even from Merriman herself.   
  
"I only agreed to meet up with Snowball to try and persuade her out of making a run for it. I had no idea she was going to bring a hostage."   
  
"Bollocks!" Exclaimed Yvonne, her voice louder out of anger.   
  
"Mrs. Atkins," Said Deed sonorously, "I have warned you once before, I will not have audience participation in my court. Disobey me again and I will consider banning you from the public gallery." Yvonne looked a little sheepish. Roisin gave her an encouraging smile. Ignoring his mother's little outburst, Ritchie continued.   
  
"When Snowball turned up with Karen Betts, she was half crazy. I think the adrenaline of taking someone hostage had gone to her head. When it looked like she was going to shoot Karen, I had to stop her. Karen Betts might have been easier to pull than a whore in Soho, but she didn't deserve to die." On hearing these words, Yvonne rose swiftly to her feet, hurt and fury evident in her eyes. Lauren and Roisin each grabbed one of her arms and forced her to sit down. Roisin thanked god that Karen hadn't been here to listen to that.   
  
"Mr. Atkins," Said John sounding like a volcano preparing to erupt. "I will not have a mouth like yours in my court. Either tone down your insults and learn some basic courtesy, or get out. If you continue to describe Karen Betts or anyone else in such unnecessary terms, I will have you removed from my court and you will be held in contempt, which you can hardly afford. Do I make myself clear?"   
  
"Crystal, Judge," Said Ritchie, not sounding the least bit contrite. George, seeing the case for one of her clients crumbling before her eyes, thought it best to cut her losses.   
  
"No further questions, My Lord," She said tonelessly.   
  
"Court is adjourned until two this afternoon. During the break, it would be appreciated if Ms Channing would teach her client some common decency."   
  
Yvonne barely gave the usher time to say "All Rise" before she stalked out of the public gallery and down the stairs. Knowing Karen would have gone somewhere she could smoke, Yvonne went outside and saw Karen and Cassie sitting on the bench. As she walked over, she tried to bring her anger at Ritchie's behaviour under control. Cassie stood up and walked towards Yvonne. Her back to Karen, she gave Yvonne a little thumbs up. When Yvonne sat down next to her, Karen looked studiously away from her.   
  
"I'm sorry I flipped," Karen said, still not looking at Yvonne.   
  
"At least you didn't get bawled at by the judge and threatened with a ban from the public gallery," Replied Yvonne, trying to make Karen smile. It worked.   
  
"Are you serious?" Karen asked, half smiling at her.   
  
"Yeah," Said Yvonne beginning to laugh. "He said something about not having audience participation in his court."   
  
"What made you say whatever you said?" Asked Karen, though she already had a fairly good idea.   
  
"Nothing important," Said Yvonne turning serious again. Karen knew Yvonne was avoiding telling her something Ritchie had clearly said about her, but she didn't press the matter. "Did you really think I'd take a blind bit of notice of what he said?" Asked Yvonne.   
  
"I don't know," Admitted Karen.   
  
"You need to learn to trust me," Said Yvonne quietly. "I make up my own mind about people."   
  
"Cassie said that," Answered Karen.   
  
"She obviously looks deeper in to a person than I've given her credit for," Said Yvonne with a smirk. Then she slid along the bench and put her arm round Karen. "Nothing," She said, her face very close to Karen's, "Is going to spoil what's between us. I mean that." As if to strengthen her argument, Yvonne leaned forward and softly kissed Karen on those full lips she was beginning to know so well.   
  
Walking out of the front doors of the court for her own nicotine fix, Jo stopped at the top of the steps as she witnessed Yvonne softly kissing Karen. Knowing now that she had definitely won her bet with John, her face lit up like a child's on Christmas morning. As she took her first, long, satisfying drag, George joined her, digging for her own cigarettes.   
  
"I didn't think you usually indulged, George?"   
  
"I don't," Replied George. "But this case is more stressful than most." Then she took a closer look at Jo's face. "What are you so pleased about?" She asked.   
  
"I've just had unquestionable proof that John is going to lose a bet," Said Jo gleefully. George's face brightened.   
  
"Tell me more," She said in the slow, upper class drawl that had attracted John to her in the first place. Jo gestured at Yvonne and Karen who were still kissing tenderly on the bench by the fountain. George looked to where Jo had pointed and a brief, rare smile touched her face.   
  
"John didn't believe me that they were more than friends," Jo enlightened George, "So I made him bet on it."   
  
"Broad mindedness never was John's strong point," Said George. "I wouldn't mind being around when he finds out though."   
  
"I think we're being watched," Said Yvonne to Karen. "And I need to see how Lauren's doing."   
  
"I'm sorry," Said Karen. "I seem to be doing nothing but taking you away from her recently." Yvonne knew she was referring to what had happened yesterday afternoon.   
  
"I think Lauren's just finding it hard to accept that her mum is no longer who she thought she was," Said Yvonne, but knowing that all the talk of Karen in court wouldn't have done the situation any favours. 


	38. Part Thirty Eight

Part Thirty Eight   
  
Di's escort duty was performed with an inextricable mixture of disgust, residual pity and total horror. This was the accomplice of that evil woman who would have casually consigned half a dozen prisoners to a fiery choking hell if it hadn't been for the fire brigade. One woman did die, Shaz Wiley, thanks to him, and for months after Denny Blood was grieving over her, poor kid. Yet this man, like her mother, was shackled to an iron frame and would never again feel that true physical independence that so many people took for granted. She remembered pushing her mother about on rare days out and that confinement of spirit of both of them came back to her in a vivid memory flash. Yet, at bottom, the hardness in Di came out on top and she was no more forgiving than the rest of them as the Prison officer from Wormwood Scrubs guided Ritchie's wheelchair to the prisoner's dock.   
  
As Karen, Yvonne, Cassie and Roisin were about to file down the staircase to the front row in the gallery. Lauren pulled Yvonne aside.  
  
"Mum, I'm getting out of here. I've had enough. I've got business to do but I'll catch up with you later." She gave Yvonne a brief smile and was gone. Immediately, the atmosphere relaxed in the gallery as Yvonne and Karen slipped their hands into each other's. Cassie and Roisin were immediately felt to be a friendly approving presence on one side of them.   
  
A rustling sound stole in over the lunchtime quietness of the courtroom and the key players assumed their positions. Jo Mills leafed through the thick sheaf of evidence which was placed before the court and readied herself to quietly crush the transparent tissue of lies that her quick mind had picked up on.  
  
"Can I ask you, Mr Atkins how you supported yourself between when you arrived back in this country and when you received the £50,000 from your mother." Her chilly formal voice opened the battle.  
  
"Oh, a bit of this and a bit of that," Ritchie smiled disarmingly at Jo Mills "Like the way I ran clubs in Spain for the tourists. I've been used to being my own boss for four years while I've been abroad."  
  
"Can you be more precise on the matter." Jo Mills pursued, watching with growing contempt, "Exactly what was the nature of your recent enterprises."   
  
"A bit of wheeling and dealing with some of my old man's mates. The Atkins name still carries some clout." Ritchie bragged to the court. He was going to bluff this one out just like his old man used to do.   
  
"I refer the court to the evidence in the bundle of papers exhibit 5AX obtained from Clapham Local Authority Payroll Department confirming the identity of one Richard Atkins , date of birth corresponding to the accused before you as an assistant librarian at Clapham North library. It shows that he started his employment with them on May 3rd 2002 and that he left their employment on June 13th 2002 just two days before the explosion at Larkhall Prison. Does this assist your memory, Mr Atkins."  
  
"I might have been, come to mention it." Ritchie said sulkily. He was beginning to resent this pushy upper class woman who didn't respond to the Atkins charm. This started to rattle him as it never had before.  
  
"While you were employed at this library, did you at any time arrange for the loan of books to Larkhall Prison."  
  
"I dunno. Clapham North library is a big place and some of the other lads might have sent a few books that way. I can't say I remember." Ritchie shrugged his shoulders with pretended indifference.  
  
"I refer the court to exhibit 3LD which is a computerised record of the interlibrary loans from a Clapham North Library to Larkhall Prison which was salvaged from the fire. If you observe, there were a couple of entries in the whole six months before Mr Atkins, and, surprise surprise , a whole host of books are issued and to only one library, nowhere else in the entire county. Also I would draw the attention of the court to the fact that not one book was ever recorded as being sent back to Clapham North library from Larkhall prison despite Clapham's policy of only lending out for a month at a time before the loan is extended.   
  
"Can I ask you again, Mr Atkins did or did you not arrange the loan of so many of your library rarest volumes, which you see listed in the evidence?"  
  
There was a sullen pause. Cassie looked with total hatred at this guy's pathetic pretence of being the big time tycoon when she had held down a job that was the real thing.   
  
"I take it that your lack of response is a yes." Jo Mills hard precise voice was directed equally at Ritchie and at the jury whom she turned to face with a slight flourish.  
  
"I also refer the court to forensic evidence also retrieved by the police investigation showing traces of explosives. Can you account for this, Mr Atkins?" and Jo once again faced up to Ritchie.  
  
"It's a lie." Shouted Ritchie." It's a set up. Nothing to do with me. How long am I going to be hassled like this? Is this British justice?"   
  
"You will be continued to be questioned according to British justice, Mr Atkins, and I direct you to provide proper answers and stop trying to evade the questions. If you don't, I'll hold you in contempt of court." John Deed replied loudly and with a very precise intonation of a kind Ritchie had never come across before. George Channing winced visibly at both sets of painful memories.   
  
Karen looked down at the court and the tattered remnants of an automatic sympathy natural to an ex nurse fell away leaving her feeling spiritually naked and emotionally reborn. A feeling of cold contempt for him put Ritchie and his kind forever on the opposite side of an invisible wall that made them forever unable to touch her in anything that they could do or feel or say. There was a huge feeling of release, a farewell to the past that had chained her down. She smiled sideways at Yvonne and she saw where her future lay. Yvonne's hand enfolded hers and gave her that extra tight squeeze   
  
Jo paused for a second and glanced upwards to see how Yvonne was reacting to see her son being verbally shredded into little pieces. For her sake, the tone in her voice was comparatively muted but the interlocking irrefutable evidence and tightly reasoned logic was quite deadly enough. Surprisingly, George's bombastic and combative demeanour of the first week was fading as much as her hopes of her client's acquittal.  
  
"I did not actually accuse you, Mr Atkins, of directly concealing the explosives in the books but your answer is answer enough."  
  
A trace of the helpless little boy appeared from underneath the bravado.   
  
"Can you explain to the court for what purpose you required the £50,000 that you received from your mother."  
  
"To set myself up in business. My sister has all the fleet of cars. She's been sitting pretty on the money my old man left while I've had to make my own way in the world. It's not easy when your own father disowns you." Ritchie's reply tried the old guilt trip routine.  
  
"That is not what I asked you, Mr Atkins. You have to explain to the court, including the jury, that the request for £50,000 was made for a specific purpose, how much of it is spent, what it has been used for and where any of the balance is held if any."  
  
"It's been stashed away in a Swiss Bank. I ended up in a wheelchair before I could do anything with it. I'll need everything I can get the way I am right now." Ritchie's reply ended on a 'hard done by' note.  
  
"Let us turn to the matter of the phone calls that you freely admit that Snowball Merriman made on the day before the explosion. You have admitted asking if Snowball Merriman was there. Why did you think she should be there at that moment of time? It was hardly her personal office."Jo asked with an edge of sarcasm.  
  
"We talk on the phone. Snowball Merriman's my girlfriend. Hardly a crime is it." Ritchie snarled. Some of the Atkins spirit came back to him.  
  
"No but the purpose for which the Reverend Mills has been used is, Mr Atkins. I ask the court to look at item 12F in the bundle of papers, which is the itemised phone calls from the prison which clearly indicates a series of phone calls made to your mobile phone over a short period of time. What were the purpose of the phone calls, Mr Atkins."  
  
"Just usual boyfriend, girlfriend sort of thing. Nothing special."  
  
"I will leave it for the jury to decide " Jo Mills retorted with a broad smile."And I shall pass on to the record of a phone call made to Karen Betts the night before the fire. Can you really pretend that it is a coincidence that Karen Betts came round to your flat that night presenting the perfect opportunity for you to plant the gun on Karen Betts and use her to smuggle the gun into Larkhall, the very same gun that was later stuck in her back by Snowball Merriman to enable her escape."  
  
"You can't fit me up for this one. No way" shouted Ritchie, red in the face with anger.  
  
"And let us turn to the direct testimony from Mrs Mills that she heard Snowball Merriman say 'Our baby's tucked up nice and safe, all ready for the weekend. Your mum thinks you've dumped me, Ritchie.' When this item of conversation which clearly indicates that 'our baby', meaning the gun 'is nicely tucked up for the weekend' meaning, is hidden for an unspecified event is placed side by side with evidence given before in court that Snowball Merriman phoned you up on Karen Bett's mobile- item 3C in the bundle of evidence- then the only conclusion that can be drawn is that not only were you available to meet Snowball Merriman with Karen Betts taken hostage but that you planned this in advance with her. Another fit up, Mr Atkins? Of course you're telling the truth and everyone else's lying."   
  
"The kidnapping had nothing to do with me. I swear it. On my father's grave."  
  
"As much as your word is worth." Jo Mills said dismissively and resumed her place.  
  
"I have one question to ask the witness." George Channing quietly intervened. At a nod from John Deed she asked a very shaken Ritchie Atkins ready to sink into the ground and feeling that Wormwood Scrubs wasn't perhaps such a bad place to be.  
  
"Can you remember the very first text message that Karen Betts ever sent to you."  
  
A faint smile stole over his face and something of the Atkins memory bank clicked into operation.  
  
"Yeah, not exactly easy to forget, that one. It said, 'Not much that legs can do but open or close but those things are above us whores.'"  
  
Ritchie said faintly.  
  
A sudden hush swept round the court and Karen had the sickening feeling that all eyes were on her for all to see. She didn't know where to put herself, even sat so close next to Yvonne. This part of the trial had appeared to go smoothly and she was calm and relaxed and ready to leave court with a nicely mellow frame of mind and this message from the past, her own, came back to haunt her.   
  
"The Beautiful South song lyrics are too good for that nobbing …….." Cassie's loud voice broke the tension but trailed off when she saw John Deed's fixed stare directed in her direction. This was the first time in her life that a man had ever shut her up, her nobbing dad included. Jesus, she'd been let out by free pardon by pushing Grayling's body through a fiery furnace and she could hear the cell doors clang shut behind her. Unlike that posing wanker in the dock, this judge was the real thing. With a huge relief, she saw a faint smile which John Deed could not altogether suppress.  
  
"I thank the gallery for providing the literary reference but I must strongly advise all those present not to try my patience too far as there are definite limits. There is an available cell ready for those who go too far. Court is adjourned for the day."  
  
Ritchie was wheeled off out of the courtroom in the depths of depression as only Snowball's finest acting could save them. He had lost everything else in his life, his family, his mobility and maybe soon his liberty. The Charlie Atkins macho school of acting was a devastatingly inadequate outer protection to face the storms of life and even Ritchie knew this for the first time in his life.  
  
Yvonne held onto a shellshocked Karen whose emotional death sentence had been reprieved at the last minute and they stumbled out of the court to let their emotions run free in the private waiting room. Was it so long ago that they were last there, both Karen and Yvonne thought at the same time? A warm rush of gratitude to Cassie swept through Karen for her intervention in the way only she could manage. Roisin clung tightly onto Cassie's arm in admiration of that boldness of spirit that had attracted her across the marriage lines. 


	39. Part Thirty Nine

Part Thirty Nine   
  
After Cassie and Roisin had driven off, Yvonne asked Karen to give her a lift home, as Lauren had taken the car when she'd gone home at lunchtime. Yvonne was worried about Lauren. If it'd been anyone else on the stand, Yvonne would have gone with her to make sure she was all right, but she had to stay and watch Ritchie's cross examination.   
  
"Do you know something?" Yvonne said in to the silence as they drove through the late afternoon traffic. "Lauren accused me yesterday of forgetting she exists."   
  
"That sounds familiar," Said Karen, remembering her numerous arguments with Ross when he'd decided to drop out of university.   
  
"Do you think she's right?" Asked Yvonne.   
  
"No," Said Karen, turning in to Yvonne's road. "I think that at the moment it might feel like that, partly because you're focusing on Ritchie's trial, and partly because of what's happening with us. Lauren's only had you back since Christmas, and she probably feels that she wants to keep you all to herself."   
  
"But that's ridiculous," Said Yvonne. "Lauren's had me all to herself since I got out."   
  
"Not really," Replied Karen. "You've had Cassie and Roisin, and Barbara and Crystal, and me on the side so to speak, and don't forget Denny."   
  
"Denny's been like one of mine since the old days when you first arrived," Said Yvonne quietly. "I was not about to forget about her just because I got out and she didn't."   
  
"I know," Said Karen softly as she turned in to Yvonne's drive.   
  
When Yvonne opened the front door and they stepped in to the house, they could hear the soft, hypnotic music of Morcheeba coming from the lounge. As Yvonne moved towards the open lounge door, she stopped and sniffed. At the same time as she saw the look of dawning recognition appear on Yvonne's face, Karen caught a waft of the sweet, fiery aroma of cannabis. Yvonne walked swiftly in to the lounge and took in the situation with a practiced glance. The curtains were closed, with a couple of lamps on here and there, and Lauren was sprawled on the sofa with a joint in one hand and an ashtray in the other. Trigger, who had been lying on the rug, got up and went wagging his tail to Karen.   
  
"Hi mum," Said Lauren in a vaguely sleepy voice. "How did my big, smart arse of a brother get on this afternoon?" At first, Yvonne just stared at her. Then, moving forward, she plucked the joint out of Lauren's hand and stubbed it out in another ashtray that was lying on the coffee table.   
  
"Hey," Complained Lauren making a futile grab for her treasure.   
  
"What the hell do you think your doing?" Asked Yvonne in a surprisingly calm voice.   
  
"I'd have thought that was obvious," #Said Lauren getting unsteadily to her feet in order to reach the ashtray where Yvonne had left the still slightly smoldering joint.   
  
"You don't do drugs in this house, Lauren. I thought you new better than that."   
  
"Since you've forgotten," Said Lauren icily. "This was my house, to do with pretty much as I please for a good eighteen months while you and dad were languishing behind bars."   
  
"And the reason your father was behind bars in the first place was because of drugs."   
  
"Oh, what," Said Lauren, facing her mother across the coffee table. "so it's all right to sell drugs but not all right to take them? Good piece of philosophy there, Mum."   
  
"No," Said Yvonne, for the first time in her life feeling the urge to slap her daughter. "Doing anything with drugs absolutely is not all right. Dealing was your father's pastime, Lauren, not mine." Karen, stood in the lounge doorway, was heartily glad to hear this.   
  
"Knew about it though, didn't you?" Lauren threw back at her. Karen also thought it was time they were left on their own to sort this out. Going back in to the hall, she picked up Trigger's lead from where it was hanging over the banister and waved it at him. As he scampered towards her, she scribbled a note on the pad on the hall table.   
  
"Taken Trigger for a walk to get us both out of the crossfire." Yvonne heard the click of the front door and briefly walked in to the hall to see Karen's note and Trigger's lead gone from it's place.   
  
Going back in to the lounge, she sat down on the sofa.   
  
"This isn't really about your dad, is it?" She asked.   
  
"No," Lauren conceded, also sitting down on the sofa but as far away from her mother as possible.   
  
"so tell me," Said Yvonne lighting them both a cigarette. "Why this sudden regression in to adolescence?"   
  
"It isn't," Said Lauren hotly.   
  
"You could have fooled me."   
  
"You're the one who's acting like a lovesick teenager again," Said Lauren in disgust. Yvonne grimaced.   
  
"You really loathe anything I might have with Karen, don't you."   
  
"You're damned right I do," Said Lauren. "Mum, this just isn't you! You don't fancy women, you're as straight as it's possible to be."   
  
"And is it such a bad thing for me to change in that way?" Asked Yvonne quietly. "After all, I wouldn't be the first in this family to do that, now would I."   
  
"We're not talking about me," Said Lauren hurriedly.   
  
"No, but maybe we should," Said Yvonne. "I know you think I haven't noticed, but you've been getting closer and closer to Cassie and Roisin over the last few months. Quite what that means, I don't know, and I don't want to know." Lauren was shocked to realise just how much her mother had seen that Lauren had tried to hide.   
  
"But why you, Mum? Why now, and why Karen Betts of all people?"   
  
"Lauren, I'm not the person I was before Larkhall. It does something to you, being in there day in day out."   
  
"Oh, what, so a lack of decent dick has suddenly changed you in to an instant dyke?" Yvonne winced, but tried to ignore the jibe.   
  
"I don't know why," Said Yvonne. "I can't explain why I feel the way I do about Karen, I just know that she's one of the most special things to happen to me."   
  
"Oh, like Denny?" Asked Lauren, and Yvonne knew they'd reached the heart of the matter.   
  
"Lauren, I totally failed as a mother to you and to Ritchie, so maybe a part of me is trying to put that right with Denny. I love you more than I will ever love anybody, but that doesn't mean I can't care about anyone else. I'm usually more proud of you than anyone I've ever known. In spite of how me and Charlie brought you up, you've stayed pretty much on the straight and narrow. Quite how, I'm not sure, but you have. Ritchie's managed to make a complete mess of his life, and I know I had a certain amount to do with that. But you've done so much to make me proud of you. Keeping the business going when me and your dad were in prison, about to start your final year at college, trying to set up this financial consultancy thing with Cassie. You've done more than I ever could have dreamed of, coming from the background you did. I'd like to be able to think of you as the one success of my life, but everything you've done isn't because of anything me and your dad did for you. I know that Ritchie being on trial is getting to you, it is to all of us, and I know that having Karen in my life and maybe eventually Denny is going to take some getting used to. but I'm not about to change any of that. You are still my daughter, and what I have with Karen and trying to be there for Denny isn't going to make me love you any less, but you have got to try to accept that this is what my life consists of these days."   
  
"How can you be, like that, with Karen after she slept with Ritchie? That's what I don't understand."   
  
"There's a lot you don't know about all that," Said Yvonne quietly.   
  
"So, tell me," Persisted Lauren.   
  
"No," Said Yvonne firmly. "There are things about Karen's life that she might not want you to know."   
  
"How do you know that once she's had whatever she wants from you, she won't move on to someone else. You heard Ritchie in court, doesn't that tell you what she's like."   
  
"I don't," Said Yvonne. "Karen might get cold feet in a couple of weeks for all I know. But that's a risk I'm prepared to take. As for what Ritchie said, don't even go there. Maybe you don't realise it, but that wasn't Ritchie sitting in that court room, that was an incarnation of your father. All that shit he was spouting was said for pure, malicious enjoyment, nothing else."   
  
"I can't convince you, can I," Said Lauren defeatedly. "I can't make you see that Karen Betts means trouble."   
  
"No," Said Yvonne sadly. "You can't. If she is, I'll find that out in my own way."   
  
"Well, don't say I didn't warn you," Said Lauren.   
  
"I think you'd better go and sleep off that dope," Said Yvonne, pure ice in her tone.   
  
"Is that the adult way of sending me to my room?" Asked Lauren with no hint of a smile.   
  
"Yes," Said Yvonne without a stir. "I don't want to argue with you about this, but keep talking like that about Karen and I will." Lauren stood up and moved towards the stairs, involuntarily obeying her mother's command to go and figuratively sover up. As Yvonne flushed away the remains of Lauren's joint and what was left of her stash, she prayed Lauren wasn't about to go through the same personality flaw as Roisin had.   
  
A while later when she observed Lauren was sound asleep, sprawled across her bed in as adolescent a fashion as possible, Yvonne thought that a little chat from Cassie, on the truly horrific points of drug addiction might not go amiss. Picking up the phone, she dialed their number. When Cassie answered, Yvonne was slightly relieved it hadn't been Roisin.   
  
"Cass, I need you to do me a favour."   
  
"Sounds serious," Replied Cassie.   
  
"Yeah," Said Yvonne contemplatively, "It is. When I got home today, I found Lauren smoking dope."   
  
"Oh, no," Cassie groaned.   
  
"Unfortunately so. I've tried talking to her, and I might have got somewhere, but would you try something for me. Would you tell her about what happened to Roisin?" Cassie went quiet for a minute. Roisin's addiction to heroin had almost killed both of them, and they weren't memories she wanted to revisit in a hurry.   
  
"Fine," She said, thanking god that Roisin was in the shower. "But Roisin doesn't know about this. She doesn't need to drag all that up again."   
  
"You're a star," Said Yvonne fondly.   
  
"Yeah, well, you owe me one for this," Said Cassie.   
  
"She's sleeping it off at the moment, so there's no rush."   
  
"I'll be over some time later," Said Cassie, hoping she was doing the right thing.   
  
As Yvonne put the phone down, she saw Karen walking back up the drive with Trigger. When she went to let them in, Trigger looked like Karen would be his favourite person for ever more.   
  
"You okay?" Asked Karen, unclipping the lead.   
  
"I'm sorry about that," Said Yvonne. Karen returned the lead to its place on the banister and turned to face her.   
  
"Where's Lauren?" She asked.   
  
"Sleeping it off, under protest."   
  
"I caught Ross smoking dope once," Said Karen, "When he was seventeen. I bawled him out good and proper, and then felt incredibly guilty."   
  
"Jesus," Said Yvonne, "It doesn't get any easier, does it."   
  
"I don't think it's supposed to," Said Karen, putting her arms round Yvonne. "The trick is, or so I'm told, is to let them make their own mistakes. But then, once they've got passed a certain age, you don't really have a choice about that. They'll make their own mistakes whether we like it or not."   
  
"I've asked Cassie to tell her about everything Roisin went through in prison."   
  
"Actually," Said Karen, "That's not a bad idea. The quicker Lauren can kick the habit, the better." When their lips met, it felt for both of them like a much needed comfort. Yvonne desperately needed to feel that someone appreciated her and thought she was doing the right thing, and Karen found herself still needing the reassurance that Ritchie's testimony hadn't caused Yvonne to want out.   
  
"Jesus," Said Yvonne after a while. "I can't get enough of this."   
  
"I noticed," Said Karen with a smirk. She knew it wouldn't be long now till Yvonne wanted the sexual ecstasy Karen could and would give her. When they heard Cassie's car pull in to the drive, they broke apart.   
  
"I've got to check up on what Sylvia's been up to in my absence," Said Karen.   
  
"Oh, do give her my love," Said Yvonne grinning. Karen laughed.   
  
"I think she'd die of shock." Karen waved to Cassie as she got in to her car, and blew a last kiss to Yvonne as she stood by the front door. Cassie watched the interchange between Yvonne and Karen, and knew that this slowly but surely growing relationship was about to provide more ructions on the horizon than had been felt in the Atkins household for a very long time. 


	40. Part Forty

Part Forty   
  
Cassie lay back in her car seat watching Karen's familiar green sports car disappear down the road thinking how times had changed in her life. She was being called upon by the one time 'top dog' of Larkhall to talk to Lauren as the adult parent substitute to her and with her reputation and past life. For a moment, she doubted her own ability to have that combination of strength and reason. When she first started living with Roisin, she had felt that it came more natural to Roisin to play that role till one day Roisin told her different.  
  
"Cassie, love," Roisin had said,"You are brilliant in the way you can tell the children straight and they'll believe you. Sometimes I feel that I can give them all the love that I feel for them but I'm forever the nagging anxious mother and I can see that in their eyes. You are great at tough love. Never forget that." And Roisin looked into her eyes in total love and admiration and not just as her girlfriend. The light touch of Roisin's fingers as she stroked the lock of hair that curled down from Cassie's side parting also helped her to believe in this little suspected side of Cassie's personality.  
  
Oh well, if Roisin has always somehow had faith in me for what she must have seen as the fickle, devil may care, love them and leave them woman, when they first met, I must have something going for me. At the same time, memories came into her mind of looking back at the total ignorance she had of Roisin's drug addiction as it was taking hold of the very way she was so thankful of the way Roisin was getting some sleep at last even if she was a bit groggy in the morning and the reality of the first barbiturate tablets she was taking. It wasn't just the drugs that was the danger.  
  
In a moment of decision, the strength in Cassie shut her car door firmly behind her and walked purposefully across the front drive to where Yvonne was waiting.  
  
"Admiring your reflection in the car mirror, were you Cassie. I'm bloody glad you could make it over here. I need help really bad on this." It was not lost on Cassie that hardness of Yvonne's wisecrack softened up into the vulnerability of a woman who was out of her depth and feeling afraid. This tough / tender side of Yvonne's personality was a large reason why Cassie had grown so fond of her.   
  
"Yeah well, it isn't going to be easy, Yvonne, it's like getting Fenner to tell the truth." Cassie's own version of Yvonne's quality was reflected back. Then her own warm smile softened this."Oh well, show me up to your juvenile delinquent daughter." Cassie added in a voice of parental firmness. Yvonne could not believe her ears in hearing a side of Cassie that she had never seen before.  
  
"Cassie, this is a surprise," smiled Lauren as her eyes blinked open when Cassie clicked on the bright bedroom light."Didn't know you fancied me that much."  
  
"Lauren, I've come over to have a straight talk with you. Seems like you've been recently seeing the wrong company and been smoking the wrong sort of tobacco." Cassie said firmly.  
  
"So what's wrong with a bit of dope, Cassie? And you of all people who turned Roisin on to her first coke. Brazilian marching powder is much more dangerous than something that everyone says is safe. Dope cools you out. Did you know how many people get killed drunk driving? And how many bastard husbands knock their wives about when they come home from the pub after they've got blind drunk? You're turning very moral all of a sudden. Not like you, Cassie."  
  
"You're going to have to learn a few things about me, Lauren." Cassie said firmly."I am not going to be the prisoner of whatever stupid things I've done in the past. I don't deny in the least what you've said about coke. But that was before I spent time in Larkhall. I've done a lot of growing up and I've changed."  
  
"So the Cassie Tyler party girl who plays spin the bottle………"  
  
"You weren't complaining, Lauren. Not like you were fighting me off, were you." Cassie cut in, her blue eyes stared down Lauren unflinchingly.  
  
"That doesn't matter. Just a bit of fun, Cassie. You don't mind a bit of fun. And your Salvation Army routine does not convince me one bit. Or yourself if you are honest." Lauren looked back in mingled incredulity and brash hostility after brushing aside Cassie's sharp retort.  
  
Oh Jesus, she's looking just like me when I gave my parents a hard time. Stick to your guns, Cassie Tyler, she said to herself, her parent and adult in full control of herself.  
  
"You'd better learn a few things about me, Lauren Atkins." Cassie said coolly with absolute conviction. "You only see one side of me when I'm out on the town with you or over here. You don't get to see the domesticated Cassie Tyler going with Roisin taking the kids out to the pictures. Or at parent's evening looking at Niamh's stories. Or talking to Michael to get him to stand up to the school bullies. Or on Sunday dinner, family meal at the table. You come over and see me anytime, I dare you. Whatever you see when I've here is one side of me……..But we're going to talk about you, Lauren, not me. And we're going to talk about drugs." Cassie finished, tossing into the verbal wastebin any more talk of who Cassie Tyler should or shouldn't be.   
  
"The thing about drugs, Lauren." Cassie said casually, lighting up a cigarette and offering one to Lauren who responded to Cassie's friendly gesture. "Is that it brings you into contact with lowlife slimebags who have the power over you, that you mix with not because you like them but you know that they have the substance on them that you crave. And you start to lie to yourself that they are your friends. And that is one big lie. So what sort of guy is it that you went off and bought your dope off, Lauren?"  
  
Cassie's words were a slap in the face to Lauren. She had shot off in her car to the rougher part of Larkhall, to some seedy looking council flat. She remembered walking through the space where the wooden front gate had been but hung uselessly on its hinges, past the overgrown front garden, a knock on the front door, minus knocker and up the uncarpeted staircase and into the bedroom. There were assorted bodies sprawled out over the double bed but the man dressed in scruffy denims had smiled at her and waved her to a corner of the dimly lit room and told her that a friend was going out to score for her.   
  
"Why don't you stay round here and have a smoke with us. We're all friends round here and it's cool."  
  
Lauren could swear that none of them had changed their positions since she'd been round the time before. She'd made stilted polite conversation to begin with but had recently found it more and more attractive as a contrast to the manic fast paced life she led in her financial consultancy with Cassie. She wished she'd have more time to just let things flow like these others but she hadn't got the time. So she had made her excuses and shot off in her car back home but each time she left, it had become much harder to make that effort. There was some mysterious quality here that she wanted to become part of and she felt that she was the wrong side of the goldfish bowl. The fact that it was a world removed from her comfortable luxurious life didn't repulse her, in fact she held a perverse fascination for her.   
  
Cassie immediately pegged the sort of scene that Lauren was romancing about in her description of and could see the big, fatal gaps in her description.  
  
"I used to go round to that sort of scene, Lauren to score my coke only a lot flashier, classier and I bought the myth that coke was for smart businesswomen and was somehow cleaner. Only I got to hear of some of my friends from the club, you know the one that I took you to and I got pissed, remember," and Lauren grinned at that memory," only I'd heard what had happened to Jane." And here. Cassie's voice assumed an brittle edge."Jane thought, hey, smoking crack cocaine gave her the ultimate buzz, thirty pounds it cost her, peanuts to someone on what she was earning….till the buzz went off a half an hour later she wanted more and more of the stuff. I gave her a lift once and she was babbling away to me like she could fix me up with some nice stuff, you won't regret it, and only when she mentioned the word 'rock' did I understand what the stupid bitch was on about, God help me for saying that about her. I told her that I'm dropping her off back at her place or she gets out of my car in the middle of nowhere. I know I did the best thing I could for her, heartless cow though I appeared to her. Going soft and dropping her off at her dealers because she asked me to was being no friend to her……..the next thing I knew, she'd lost her job, her friends, her self respect, her lover, her possessions….all went up in smoke, Lauren. Jane used to go to that club we were at and would have been that night if she hadn't ever got onto that stuff."  
  
Lauren sat wide eyes, seeing an intensity, grief and anger intermingled in Cassie that she had never known before. But Cassie wasn't through with her just yet.  
  
"And this crowd of 'friends' that you buy your dope off, Lauren." Cassie's voice searched into Lauren's eyes."Are you sure that they only do dope? I don't believe that one. But you haven't heard what happened to Roisin in Larkhall, not properly."  
  
And Lauren knew for certain that there was a more dangerous layer of existence in that flat which she was on the point of being seduced into  
  
"I've told you what happened to Roisin in Larkhall, Lauren." What you hear from me is from what Roisin and I have talked over. Roisin was hurting inside, away from our kids who were kept away from being a part of and she was desperately afraid that they were being turned away from her, by Aiden and by being in prison and being a bad mother, who blamed me and herself for being there so she turned to something that would numb the pain, first sleeping tablets, that sounded respectable, then something to 'put a smile on her face' typical dealers talk for speed. Only she swore to have nothing to do with needles till she turned to the biggest nobbing painkiller of all, heroin. And she was mainlining. She never intended to get onto the stuff. Only no addict ever intends to be an addict. They are just at some shit point in their lives and the stuff is available."  
  
"All right, Cassie. There are some people who get hooked on drugs and end up in a mess. But you're saying that their lives are in a mess to begin with. I'm strong enough, got to be to look after the business while Mum was inside."  
  
"So what's really bugging you, Lauren? What about Denny? Yvonne was telling me how it was when Denny came over for the day." Cassie deliberately shot a little wide of the mark but that was to tackle the easier problem first.  
  
" I couldn't stand it when Denny was acting as if she is part of the family. I couldn't say it to her face. She isn't an Atkins…."  
  
"Neither is your mother, that's the problem," Cassie jumped in smartly.  
  
"What." Lauren shot back, her voice full of derision and incredulity."Jealous of Denny? I mean, she's nice enough and friendly but she's no competition…."  
  
"Except that Yvonne loves her in an uncomplicated way."  
  
"You mean mum loves her better than me……."  
  
Cassie said nothing for a few minutes to let Lauren's question hang in the air and become a confession.  
  
"You forget Yvonne Denny and I were all prisoners in Larkhall together when we all had nothing apart from what illicit stuff could be smuggled in." Cassie explained thoughtfully."You're on top of each other, day in day out…….not in that way," Cassie added hastily, seeing Lauren start to leap to conclusions,"But you get to know things about each other that you wouldn't get the time for on the outside. And I know that there is a real bond between Denny and Yvonne that will never die. Something about Denny getting the mother love from Yvonne that she never had from her own. And the Atkins values that you got from your mother that messes with your head. Yvonne is one step ahead of you in moving away from that. I know about jealousy between sisters. My sister Gail was the goody goody sister who I was dead jealous of even I've grown up drop dead gorgeous to women,"and here the Cassie familiar to Lauren humourously peeked out,"and Gail was plain. My parents treated her as the favourite and I treated her like shit. I was jealous of her and, only on the outside, could I go over and talk to her and become friends. The thing is, I could have done it years ago. So, kid." And Cassie's familiar bantering style overtook her very serious, adult, reasoning style."You'd better get used to it. Don't fight it and build a wall between you and your mum. Denny won't want to come between you and Yvonne. She's no threat and she's a good kid…….even though I could never see what she saw in Shaz. Not my type at all." Cassie finished with a smile.  
  
Lauren was transfixed by Cassie's words which were pitched perfectly as adult talk softened by the suggestion of the verbally outrageous Cassie she had known. She swallowed hard and promised to listen. She couldn't properly deal with it then and she desperately wanted time to mull it all over. She could grasp onto a few threads that Cassie was right about drugs and there was something in what she was saying about Denny. But her mind blanked off and shut down after that. There was so much that Cassie was hitting her with that her mind was buzzing with it all.  
  
"Which brings me on to Karen. You have got to give her a chance……."  
  
"No, Cassie, shut the fuck up." Lauren flared."I won't talk about that woman………."  
  
Shit, thought Cassie. I've messed up. I was just that bit too overeager. What do I say now? What do I do? Lauren had turned her head down and wouldn't look at Cassie. That precious eye contact and thin thread of communications was lost.   
  
"Shit, I'm sorry for pushing you too hard."  
  
"You ought to be, Cassie."   
  
Lauren was trembling and there were tears in her eyes, something no one had seen. Atkins don't do tears so she covered her face with her hands and wiped the tears away. This didn't fool Cassie as she had seen Michael's exactly similar gesture to show to himself and the world around him that boys don't cry. Cassie calmed down and realised that the clock on the bomb wasn't ticking if she didn't speak. Just allow Lauren so much time before speaking, Cassie thought to herself.  
  
"I know it will take you some time to get used to your mother being in love with another woman. I guess I'm likely to forget that one being out since I've been twelve. Pretty young to start, hey." Cassie smiled and a faint ghost of a smile played on Lauren's lips. She couldn't be angry with Cassie for long.  
  
"I remember you saying that time we were out on the piss 'It's all right. Mum is over sixteen. She can do what she likes as long as she doesn't get hooked on some bastard.  
  
One is enough.'Just think of that."  
  
Lauren made no answer, being too choked inside to talk.  
  
"Do you want me to go soon, Lauren? But not as enemies, hey."  
  
Lauren made no answer but to slip her arms round Cassie's shoulders and kiss her very lightly on her cheek.  
  
"You'd better go home, Cassie, back to Roisin," Lauren replied.  
  
Cassie smiled and went out through the door.  
  
"How did you get on, Cassie." Yvonne asked. She'd been nervously pacing the hallway, ears strained for the sounds of any objects thrown or shouting and, miraculously, there was relative quiet. The strained smile on Cassie as she tottered downstairs was halfway good news.  
  
"Two out of three if I'm lucky, Yvonne. I need a drink even if I am driving."  
  
"You could stay the night if you want to make it more than one, Cassie" Yvonne offered generously. The large drinks cabinet was Cassie's for the choosing if she'd achieved anything like she hinted. She was going into a major panic zone about Lauren, all the horrifying for it being unprecedented and also that, for once, her very resourceful personality faced a situation beyond her control.  
  
"Thanks but no."Cassie declined gracefully. "I promised Roisin I'd be back."  
  
"Anyway, briefly, Lauren will probably knock drugs on the head and the bad company she's been keeping, she'll think twice about Denny but I blew it in being too pushy about Karen. We are on talking terms still."  
  
Just then, the phone rang. It was Roisin for her.  
  
"Hey, babe, yeah. I got somewhere with Lauren. Not everything but it wasn't wasted. I'm going to have a quick drink and I'll be off home."  
  
The expression on Cassie's face was surprisingly shy and bashful as Roisin poured out all her praises of Cassie who had pulled out of nowhere qualities she never knew she had. To Roisin's practiced ear, Cassie's version was no exaggeration.  
  
"And Michael and Niamh phoned up from Aiden's and said how much they missed us. They were disappointed they couldn't speak to you but I explained what had happened and they insisted I phone up right now to pass on their love."  
  
"See you in a bit, babe." Cassie replied. And then to Yvonne she turned to speak.  
  
"That woman spoils me rotten, Yvonne, more than I have been already."  
  
Yvonne smiled wistfully, thinking of Karen, as she saw love's dream written all over Cassie's face and sensed that this could be her own future, if only Lauren would let her. Jesus, it was hard sometimes having so many people to please all the time. The story of her life however much her tough bitch exterior appeared to say the opposite.  
  
  
  
"Snowball's on tomorrow," Cassie said casually.  
  
Yvonne had forgotten that with all the drama of events at home.  
  
"We'd best be on our best behaviour, Cassie, as I want to see that smug bitch banged up for what she's done and not us for bleeding contempt of court for throwing something hard at her. We've both pushed our luck. Don't want to end up as badgirls sharing a cell together."  
  
Cassie grinned and stepped out into the darkness. 


	41. Part Forty One

Part Forty One   
  
On the Tuesday morning, Yvonne was pleased to see Barbara making her way in to the public gallery to join them.   
  
"Babs," She said as Barbara sat down between her and Cassie. "Good to see you."   
  
"I'm sorry I couldn't make it yesterday," Said Barbara, "But when you only work part time anyway, they're not as sympathetic about anyone taking time off."   
  
"Don't worry," Said Yvonne, "You didn't miss anything worth seeing. Trust me."   
  
"Wasn't Ritchie on yesterday?" Asked Barbara.   
  
"Precisely," Was Yvonne's curt reply. Karen appeared then and sat down on Yvonne's other side, noticing that Lauren was sitting as far away from her mother as possible.   
  
"Barbara," She said with a smile, "How're you doing?"   
  
"Hello, Miss Betts," Said Barbara, not quite sure how to address her former wing governor.   
  
"Karen will do," Said Karen. "I like to forget about Larkhlal as much as possible when I'm not there."   
  
"How did it go yesterday?" Asked Barbara. Yvonne and Karen exchanged a glance, neither of them wanting to further disturb the still bleeding wounds of Ritchie's evidence.   
  
"Not brilliantly," Was Karen's evasive reply.   
  
When Snowball was led in to the witness box, she was wearing a short, navy blue skirt, and the tightest white top imaginable.   
  
"Jesus," Said Yvonne, "She looks the spitting image of Dockley." Karen could certainly see the resemblance.   
  
"I swear by all mighty god, to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." The slow American drawl made every eye from the jury fix on her.   
  
"That'll be the day," Muttered Barbara. John's eyes flickered over Snowball from head to foot. For someone who'd been behind bars for over twelve months, this one looked immaculate. George moved forward to address her, looking to Jo as if she'd really rather be anywhere but here.   
  
"Ms Pilkinton," George began. "Please would you tell the court about your first day in Her Majesty's Prison Larkhall?" Snowball's eyes swept the public gallery, paying particular attention to the faces of Karen and Yvonne.   
  
"I was given a cell on G 3, on enhanced," She began, having returned to her natural northern tones. "I was payed a visit by Principle Officer Jim Fenner." Here she switched back to the Florida drall. "He commented on my name, said it was unusual. I told him that Snowball Merriman was my professional name. He also commented on the amount of books I had with me. He suggested that I might be interested in knowing that Larkhall ran the interlibrary loan scheme."   
  
"So, it was definitely Principle Officer Fenner who told you about the interlibrary loan scheme?" Queried George.   
  
"Most certainly," Snowball said, the insincerity dripping from every word for those who knew her. "We talked about my possible extradition back to the states. Mr. Fenner stood close to me and put his hands on me. He said that I'd do well to achieve a good report."   
  
"In what way did Principle Officer Fenner, put his hands on you?" George lingered over her words. Slipping in to full acting mode, Snowball ran a hand over her left breast, allowing her thumb to graze her nipple. Yvonne and Karen muttered "Bleedin Hell" and "Jesus Christ" simultaneously. John heard them.   
  
"Yes, I quite agree," He said. "You will confine yourself to verbal descriptions, Ms Pilkinton, and I don't want to see a repetition of such behaviour in this court. Do I make myself clear?"   
  
"Oh, crystal clear, your honour," Said Snowball, locking her burning gaze with John's. George tried to take back the reins, but feeling more and more like this blonde tart was in control.   
  
"So, Mr. Fenner made it clear to you that if you exchanged sexual favours with him, he would give you a good progress report."   
  
"Oh, sure," Said Snowball. "He made that perfectly clear."   
  
"Now," Went on George. "Could you tell the court about what Principle Officer Fenner said to you concerning yvonne Atkins?" Snowball now slid back in to the northern accent that portrayed her false innocence.   
  
"He said he had her on a tight leash, and that if I had any trouble from her, he'd have her on the end of his spike!" She put so much venom in to these last words that Karen winced. "He wanted me to spy for him, find out what Atkins was up too."   
  
"And did you spy on Yvonne Atkins as Mr. Fenner had asked?" continued George.   
  
"Like anyone could get near her," Replied Snowball, slipping easily back in to Florida speak. "She's like me, she keeps her thoughts all locked away where no prying eye can find them." Yvonne was so incensed at being compared to such a piece of trash, that she made a move as if to rise to her feet.   
  
"Don't," Said Karen, grabbing hold of Yvonne's arm. "You're playing right in to her hands if you kick off." Yvonne entangled her fingers with Karen's, greatful for her calm, reassuring presence.   
  
"And why did Yvonne Atkins reveal your true identity to the other inmates?" Asked George.   
  
"She didn't trust me," Said Snowball, The Wigan intonation returning. "She thought I was on Fenner's side."   
  
"And were you?" Asked George.   
  
"No way, Ma'am," Replied Snowball, all the authenticity evaporating with her return to her slow, seductive drall. "I let him think so, because it meant he was nicer to me, like giving me the job in the library, for example. My feeding him little snippets about what Yvonne Atkins was supposedly up to was my way of keeping him sweet. It always pays to have an officer on your side. But he's the worst creep I ever met."   
  
"And with your career that's really saying something," Murmured Yvonne.   
  
"Ms Pilkinton, what is your relationship with your co-defendent, Ritchie Atkins?" A slow, secretive smile came over Snowball's face.   
  
"Me and Ritchie were made for each other," She Said, the northern accent making her sound like the innocent sweetheart she wanted to be. "We met in the States. He was charm personified, couldn't get enough of me."   
  
"And did you keep in contact with him whilst you were in prison?"   
  
"On and off. Chose to start seeing some screw though, didn't he." There was a mixture of hurt and pure venom in Snowball's tone.   
  
"By some screw," Said George, "I assume you mean Karen Betts."   
  
"Oh, yeah. Stole Ritchie right from under my nose, didn't she. Couldn't wait to get her hands on him. Evil slag!"   
  
"Ms Pilkinton, you will moderate your language when in my court room. I will not warn you again. You can little afford to be charged with contempt of court on top of everything else." George glared at John, at the same time knowing he was right.   
  
"Now," Said George, trying to retrieve some of the situation. "Will you tell the court exactly why you tried to escape?"   
  
"No way was I staying around to be shipped back to a cell on death row. I was only in on a drugs charge. They'd have had me extradited at the first opportunity."   
  
"And when you were apprehended by Karen Betts, what did she say to you?"   
  
"I was disguised as one of the nuns visiting for the open day. She said, "Oh it's prayer time for you all right, Sister Snowball, and then she snapped on the handcuffs."   
  
"Did you believe this to be a threat against your personal safety. After all, Karen Betts was aware by this time that her lover, Ritchie Atkins, was helping you." It was Karen's turn to be slightly restrained by Yvonne as she took a breath to denounce such a ridiculous claim.   
  
"Well, I didn't exactly think I'd be her favourite person after that," Said Snowball smugly.   
  
"Ms Pilkinton," Went on George, "Why did you choose to return to the wing after your spell in segregation. Was this not putting your personal safety in jeopardy?"   
  
"No," Said Snowball with all the assurance of the Hollywood actress. "I had no reason to fear my fellow inmates," She said, the Florida intonation returning with full force. "Because I hadn't perpetrated the crime that had killed their friend. Why would I want to kill someone I'd never even known. Shaz Wiley had been, ghosted I believe is the term, out of Larkhall before I arrived." Remembering only too well the almost catatonic state Denny had been in for weeks after Shaz's death, Yvonne felt a surge of rage for this self-satisfied tart's lack of emotion.   
  
"Now, let us discuss the event which took place six weeks after the fire. Why did you take Karen Betts hostage?"   
  
"She was the reason my escape attempt failed. She'd been screwing my man. What more reason do you want other than I was jealous and wanted to pay her back."   
  
"Are you submitting a defense of diminished responsibility for the charge of greavous bodily harm, Ms Channing?" Asked Deed incredulously.   
  
"Not as such, My Lord," Said George evasively, but knowing she was really treading the thin line between what he would stand and what he wouldn't.   
  
"How did you come to shoot your co-defendent?" Asked George.   
  
"The stupid git just had to try and save Karen Betts' miserable life," Said Snowball, the stacato Wigan speech making her sound all the more venomous. "Ritchie was trying to get the gun off me. He told me I was going too far. I was only giving her what she deserved. Always the way with a bloke though, isn't it. No matter who they sleep with, no matter how pointless it is, they still have a soft spot for them. He thought he'd try and play the hero. I didn't mean to shoot him, it was an accident. If he hadn't tried to stop me blowing that bitch's brains out, he'd still be able to walk." The court was silent for a minute or two, trying to take in what she'd said. Snowball was doing her utmost to place the blame of Ritchie's disability on Karen. Karen spared a thought to wonder at Snowball's timing. Karen and Yvonne's relationship was still in its very early stages, and Karen couldn't think of a better way to knock it on the head than Yvonne ending up blaming her for what had happened to Ritchie. George's   
  
"No further questions, My Lord," was what eventually broke the silence. John seemed to come out of his own moment of contemplation.   
  
"Court is adjourned until two this afternoon," He simply said.   
  
When they'd walked downstairs, Karen turned to Yvonne.   
  
"Do you blame me?" She asked. Yvonne stared at her.   
  
"What kind of a dozy question is that. No, of course I don't blame you. Merriman was out to shoot somebody that day, and it just so happened that at the last minute Ritchie found his conscience. That's nobody's fault, least of all yours." Yvonne put her arms round Karen, not really caring if anyone saw them. "Listen," She said, her lips close to Karen's ear. "Ritchie made his own bed, and now he's got to lie in it. The way me and his dad brought him up might have had something to do with that, but you certainly didn't."   
  
"Thank you," Said Karen softly. When they broke apart, Yvonne could see a soft smile dawning on Barbara's face. As they moved towards the court canteen, though no-one really felt like eating, Barbara sidled up to walk next to Yvonne.   
  
"Are you two?" She asked, not quite sure how to describe what was clearly going on between Yvonne and Karen. Yvonne smiled and Karen said, "Something like that."   
  
"But you don't need to broadcast it to all and sundry," Said Yvonne, knowing Barbara well enough to trust her.   
  
"Well," Said Barbara, her smile turning in to a grin, "At least this time I don't have to play postman."   
  
"Yeah," Agreed Yvonne with a laugh. "I'd forgotten about that." Karen looked mystified. "Remind me to enlighten you some time," Said Yvonne, not wanting Karen to find out about Helen and Nikki right this minute. As Karen moved away to find a table, Barbara said,   
  
"I'm pleased for you." Yvonne smiled.   
  
"Thanks, Babs. I don't know where it's going, and it feels like everyone involved in this trial is trying to tare it up before it's hardly got started, but I think it's good for both of us. Jesus, can you imagine Nikki's face if she knew I'd gone off the straight and narrow?" Barbara laughed.   
  
"She'd think it was her lucky day," Said Barbara, hoping that Karen's and Yvonne's relationship wouldn't stray in to the territory of being as fraught as Nikki's had with Helen. She didn't think she could go through the same level of stress and anxiety with yet another couple. 


	42. Part Forty Two

Part Forty Two   
  
Jo shut herself away in a quiet ante room of the Old Bailey, one of those dusty ancient rooms that the ghost of Charles Dickens might have walked into and had found himself at home, the sort of institution that he was well used to satirising.   
  
Instead, Jo's mind furiously ran over the mesh of testimony that was offered but was forced to the conclusion that the picture that she was painting that would secure the conviction had been roughly defaced by Snowball's graffitti. The one particular part of the picture needed to be mended by recalling the very person who raised a feeling of total repulsion in her, from the shiftiness of his personality and what she had heard of him from John. Added to that, George's disclosure that Fenner had had sexual relationships with a number of prisoners supposedly in his care rang loud warning bells. Malicious bitch though George is, she would hardly risk her professional reputation by making false or exaggerated claims in court. The most dangerous verbal weapon in court trials is the bare substantiated truth  
  
On the other side, she was faced with Snowball's grotesquely artificial personality. The very sound of her voice was as if a school blackboard were scraped by a sharp object that set her teeth on edge. She was used to frustrated actresses whose desire to assume a false persona was coldly calculated to make you believe what they wanted to believe. But this was different. This woman holding the attention of the court in a very calculated way, George and John included, shifted erratically from one persona to another with no logical join, a psychological Frankenstein's monster where what was real and what was counterfeit were blurred.   
  
Jo threw down the pencil and paced round the room to gain inspiration. To hell with it, who of the two do I least distrust, Jo asked herself and she concluded, Fenner by a small margin. Her mind was made up to go for it. There was no other way. In the last resort, she trusted, not to legal precedents, but her instinctive ability to conjure out of the court proceedings the situation that she wanted.   
  
The court came to life again from its sleepy summer lunchtime siesta as the gathering crowd filled it up, from the now familiar faces in the gallery, to John Deed up on high and Jo and George in their respective positions.  
  
"My lord, I wish to raise a point of law. In view of new testimony given this morning, I wish to recall a witness to the stand." Jo's clear determined voice came like a bolt from the blue to all concerned.  
  
John Deed took one look at the expression on George's face, expressing her furious outrage. There had been an uneasy peace between George and Jo in the last few days but John well knew that this was about as stable as a peace agreement as between the warring factions in the Middle East. The guns and missiles had in no way been melted down nor had peace broken out and goodwill to all humanity.  
  
"In view of the audience participation during this case, I think that we will discuss this behind closed doors in my chambers immediately."  
  
"Your turn next, Karen to cause trouble." Yvonne grinned."Me and Cassie have been the bad girls so far."   
  
Karen smiled back but wondered just exactly what prompted this unexpected event and trying to anticipate the next scene in the unfolding story.  
  
"Ms Channing, Mrs Mills, I request that you adjourn to chambers so that I can hear this point of law and give a ruling on it. I insist that the jury remain behind and do not leave the court buildings while this urgent matter is being sorted out. You must be readily available to court ushers as I have every expectation that the court hearing will resume. The same applies for witnesses to be available and I would suggest that our guests in the gallery follow the same procedure though they are not bound by it." John Deed spoke out as confidently and firmly as he could, though inwardly apprehensive at being MC to two very combative women and a court trial that was held in the balance.  
  
George had closed her mouth, and now grabbed her bundle of papers under her arm and took short rapid furious steps in the direction of the small anteroom to catch up with John Deed. Jo followed behind in a more leisurely fashion.  
  
"I knew this ceasefire wouldn't last," groaned John Deed as he passed by Coope who was following the business with intense interest and had arrived at her own conclusion.  
  
"Can you leave this door in one piece please, George." John Deed joked nervously to George as he opened the door politely to let her pass. The tightening of her lips reminded him that light hearted humour was never one of George's qualities, least of all now.   
  
The chamber was like a much smaller version of the court room in feel but without the imposing throne and the witness stands. For a judge who exploited the trappings of power and the assertion of his physical superiority, the chamber might diminish the judge and place him in a dangerous sense of equality. Not so John Deed who could hold his own in any setting, either formal or casually dressed except for one small area of his life, and that was in arbitrating between his mistress and his ex wife.  
  
"My lord, I wish to recall Mr James Fenner to the stand. " Jo explained to George's outrage. "The testimony offered earlier by Mr Fenner does, as you recall, differ radically from the most recent evidence offered by Ms Pilkinton. There were several matters raised in cross examination by Ms Pilkinton, which the prosecution had no reason to consider to raise in examination of Mr Fenner."  
  
"And, I suppose you are arguing that Mr Fenner is Dr Barnardo to all the waifs and strays that come under his wing, Jo," George snorted loudly and contemptuously, rolling her eyes for maximum theatrical effect."You had your chance earlier. The request is utterly preposterous and ridiculous. I absolutely oppose it."   
  
Jo thought for a moment. True, George. But you know bloody well that I was constrained in my cross examination of Mr Fenner and I may have held back unconsciously from probing his evidence as much as I might have done or else he would have turned and ran. I would much rather have had him as a hostile witness as you did, George. She couldn't say this as, objectively, it was no excuse.  
  
"And Ms Pilkinton is Julie Andrews, George? Need I say more?" Jo said simply and very effectively.  
  
Now it was George's turn to hesitate. Miss Innocent, 'butter wouldn't melt in her mouth' was simpering at the Deed in her sneakiest manner. A little voice at the bottom of her mind told her that there was something in what Jo was saying but she shouted down that voice. She would far sooner have her own awkward way and be wrong than be right and have to back down, particularly to Jo.   
  
"I quite fail to see the argument for recalling Mr Fenner to the witness stand. Unless it is your habit of having your cake and eating it, Jo. But then again, John, poor dear is bound to take your point of view as always." George continued the hostilities with her usual mixture of bolshiness and maliciously poised innuendo.  
  
The two women sat in chairs, pointedly distant from each other and never facing each other directly.   
  
"Your arguments were never sexy enough, George." Jo countered with a rapid verbal thrust to hit this woman where it hurt most. There were people around, usually women whom it gave Jo the utmost pleasure in using her facility for words to hit the spot that hurt the most and make it as painful as possible. This squared with her sense of morals   
  
because it was because those sort of people who had it coming to them.  
  
She knew that John had an erratic taste in women but what in heaven made him attracted to this bitch whose very voice, appearance and every little mannerism smelled of sheer gluttony for money. Her latest acquisition was to be publicly flaunted but was never enough for her. And, to make it worse, John must have walked blindfold in a total trance, up the aisle to sign the marriage contract and deliver himself into her sexually and financially rapacious hands.  
  
"Ladies, ladies," John exclaimed, eyebrows raised on his long suffering face and praying to some justice above. "Can you please keep to the point and not scratch each other's eyes out. All I ask is a little give and take."  
  
"If I give, she takes. You ought to know that John. After all you were married to her once." Jo replied curtly.  
  
"The brazen nerve of this woman. John, you must for once in your life be firm. But then again, firmness was never your strong point."  
  
John shook his head in wonder at how George could utter such outrageous lies and be so wilfully selfish and yet summon up such a theatrical air of being wronged and misunderstood. He wondered sometimes how she behaved in private with Neil Houghton and how far she could wrap him round her little finger allowing for the fact that she would run up against a ruthless bastard from his brief experience of lover boy. No one who had eyes to see could deny that this political ruthlessness is a badge of office of this present Cabinet. If they had the chance those sort of people would have the judiciary today under its thumb as much as Joseph Stalin did in the 1930s. They don't actually shoot people these days, that's all.   
  
John got up from his seat and walked away to summon up his thoughts and pray for the right words, the right formulation to satisfy the needs of justice, two very strong women and, oh yes, he. That short walk helped and, mercifully, both Jo and George had sat there glaring in each other's general direction but had said and done nothing. That rather surprised him.  
  
He stood in between them and said,   
  
"Come here, both of you," And when neither moved he said, "Come on, it's not that difficult." Jo and George, both wondering what he was up too, moved towards him. Finally, he laid a hand on each of their shoulders making them face each other.  
  
"Why do you not both try and at least look at each other. Come on, you are able to do it. You can be nice to each other. You will be nice to each other." John spoke in a repetitive hypnotic way and keeping that physical contact through him. "Otherwise, "and John added with a light hearted laugh, "you would compel me to commit the most outrageous act of my life……..by locking you in a cell together for twenty four hours, with no other company but each other, only a space ten feet by ten, with bars on the door and the key turned. But of course, that would be going too far, wouldn't it?"  
  
Both women heard John Deed at his most relaxed and jovial and yet both were frozen rigid by the same joint vision of their worst nightmare. George, especially, knew that having locked her in a cell twice, a third time was equally possible. John was especially dangerous when he was joking. The threat to Jo was an equal slap in the face and she took in the whole scene of the three of them and not her tunnel vision antagonism  
  
to George. In a blinding flash, she could see how she was playing her part in pushing John into a corner.   
  
"I have considered the merits of this case and you should not lose sight of the plight of the jury, twelve lay members of the public with no especial legal training." John continued."You must agree that this is the most tortuous case for us to get our heads around. Just imagine how it must be for the jury to decide. I can very easily imagine the jury being literally unable to decide on a verdict and for all the parties to the trial, the defendants, the witnesses, those in the gallery, we would be failing in our duty for the process of law to fail to get to the bottom of this very entangled affair."   
  
George and Jo could not help but agree and, for once in her life, George was forced to make a concession.   
  
"All right, John, if you insist." George spoke tightly."I'll agree to Mr Fenner's recall as a witness. But in return." And George's tone of voice shifted to the hard and uncompromising with the expected sting in the tale."I absolutely insist, Jo that you agree that Karen Betts be recalled as well."  
  
"For what purpose, George." Jo retorted. "Surely you are able for once in your life to make a concession with..."  
  
"I'll cut a deal with you, Jo" George replied, looking directly at Jo."You agree to Karen Betts being recalled and I'll agree to Fenner being recalled."   
  
"Why Karen Betts, George? On what point of principle, that is if you know the meaning of the word." Jo's voice tailed off in volume just to aggravate George that little bit more. Jo did not especially look for arguments but it was her experience that a real no holds barred, fight dirty, argument happened every time with another combative woman like George especially.  
  
"Because, Jo" George said slowly and loudly so as to think of a half way feasible reason."For the very same reason as you. Ms Pilkinton cast a very interesting light on Ms Betts and I want, in fact I demand to hear what she has to say for herself. And, you don't get one sided agreements out of me." George finished, revealing in the last verbal flourish her real motivations which her deliberate emphasis of 'very' showed how she was going to operate.  
  
"I am right in supposing that if the testimony by Merriman, will run its course , it will not be finished by the end of the day, Jo ……..Then Karen Betts and Fenner will be recalled to the stand on Thursday morning. Once Mr Fenner's availability can be confirmed by the court, can you, Jo, make arrangements that Karen Betts can confirm her availability likewise. I must know that both arrangements have been confirmed, not later than first thing Thursday morning. Are you both in agreement on this."  
  
Jo nodded mute assent. She had no choice but to agree to the deal.  
  
"Then we have an agreement for recall of both witnesses. Then let's resume the trial without delay."  
  
John shut the door nervously after himself to reassure the door that severe damage would not result in major surgery at the hands of a skilled craftsman from the fury of a female barrister with more physical strength than a casual observer would suspect. He wanted to get the participants into their places while the going was good and bind both women to the agreement so that neither of them could back out.  
  
They trooped out of the chamber where the hands of the clock had ticked away the time to half past three. Good gracious, were we wrangling about the matter for so long? Ah well, in the long run, it will pay.  
  
"I had hoped to deal with the point of law in fairly short order but it took longer to resolve than I had anticipated. It is too late for Ms Pilkinton to be cross examined and I propose to carry on with the hearing tomorrow. I thank you all for your patience. Court is adjourned."  
  
Bodybag tut tutted in irritation. All this legal red tape and messing about. And I suppose that I'll be on escort duty to take that murdering criminal back on another day's outing instead of being locked up in a cell with Gideon's Bible since she's so religious. Much quicker and easier for the British taxpayer to kick her back to America and have done with it with the electric chair. The only good side of this is another day's expenses.  
  
The rest of the court audience had that let down feeling, wondering what had happened and what was going to happen tomorrow. Karen, Yvonne, Cassie and Roisin filed up the staircase with Lauren trailing up the rear in pointed disapproval. Babs, following on the heels of the other four, smiled benevolently with Christian blessings on them all. They clattered their way down the staircase and into the milling throng downstairs. 


	43. Part Forty Three

Part Forty Three   
  
As they walked down in to the foyer, they were approached by Jo.   
  
"Karen, I need to talk to you," She said without any preamble.   
  
"Do you want me to stay?" Asked Yvonne. Karen shook her head.   
  
"I'll give you a ring later," Karen said softly, briefly touching her hand to Yvonne's cheek. The feeling of such chemistry, such completeness between these two slightly softened Jo's mood. Karen followed Jo as she walked back upstairs and down a couple of corridors until she opened a door on to a large, airy room with comfortable chairs and a couple of tables. Jo closed the door and gestured for Karen to sit down. She came straight to the point.   
  
"I need to recall you as a witness."   
  
"Why?" Asked Karen, getting a very bad feeling about this.   
  
"I hadn't intended to recall you," Said Jo, "But as the law stands, both the prosecuting and defending barristers must agree if a witness is to be recalled. There were enough discrepancies in the evidence this morning that I applied to the Judge to recall James Fenner. The only way George would agree, is if you were also recalled."   
  
"That's nice of her," Commented Karen dryly. "And you think she wants to haul me over the coals about Ritchie."   
  
"I'd say that's a fair possibility," Said Jo, not liking what she had to do next. There was a knock at the door and Coope put her head round.   
  
"The Judge asked me to see if you wanted coffee," She said. Karen shook her head, knowing that caffeine would only make her more on edge.   
  
"No thank you," Said Jo, "But please could you find us an ashtray." Coope returned quickly with one and both Karen and Jo lit up.   
  
"I need to know everything about your brief affair with Ritchie," Said Jo, biting the bullet. Then, at Karen's silence she said, "You can be pretty sure that everything you know about your encounters with Ritchie, George will know too, and she'll have no qualms about focussing on every irrelevant, salacious detail possible. She'll want to give the jury any reason not to trust your earlier evidence. I know how much you won't want to do this, but I need to know as much as you can tell me about Ritchie Atkins, mainly so that I can work out what George is likely to ask you and be ready to object to it."   
  
"Forewarned is forearmed as they say," Was Karen's reply. She stood up and began pacing from one end of the room to the other, only returning to the table where Jo had put down her papers, to flick the ash from her cigarette. Jo simply sat and watched her, knowing that discussing the finer points of her private life wasn't something Karen would ever feel comfortable doing.   
  
"It was on the fifth of May last year," Karen began. "Ritchie came to Larkhall to see Yvonne. When he was being searched, he made the usual crack about preferring the feminine touch. I said if I'd had a pound for every time I'd heard that old line, and he said what about the one with nice legs. Not the first time I'd heard that before, and it won't be the last. It sounds ridiculous I know, but he reminded me I was still attractive. When he was with Yvonne in the visiting room, he asked for a pen so she could write down his phone number. I'd never be able to prove it, but I know he purposefully said his number loud enough for me to hear."   
  
"Why did you choose to follow it up?" Asked Jo, feeling like she was breaking in on a solo virtuoso performance. This was taking a lot of effort for Karen, and Jo didn't want to interrupt her in her stride.   
  
"At the time," Said Karen, "A perfect stranger was what I wanted. Someone who didn't know anything about me, who knew nothing about my life, my career, about a lot of things," She finished lamely.   
  
"Someone who knew nothing about what had happened with James Fenner," Suggested Jo. Karen recoiled as if from a slap, and Jo metaphorically bit her tongue.   
  
"That's the irony of the whole thing," Said Karen bitterly. "I literally threw myself at Ritchie as a way of moving on from someone who'd been playing me for a fool since day one, and yet Ritchie ends up doing exactly the same." Karen lit another cigarette.   
  
"Tell me about the text message you sent him?" Prompted Jo gently. Karen walked over to an open window and stood looking out on to the surroundings of the court.   
  
"I don't really know why I chose a song lyric," She said, "After the crack he'd made about my legs, it just seemed to fit." Jo flicked back through her notes to where she'd written it down: not much legs can do but open or close, but those things are above us whores.   
  
"Was the reference to legs the only reason this particular line seemed right?" Asked Jo, wondering if she was treading too far across the thin ice of Karen's feelings. But Karen was no fool. She could see the real question behind what Jo had actually asked.   
  
"Fenner made me feel about as worthless as it's possible to feel," Said Karen quietly. "I think I felt like that was all I was good for. Ritchie was mostly about taking control again."   
  
"What was his reply to the message you sent him?"   
  
"It quite literally said, want a screw."   
  
"That's to the point, I suppose," Said Jo.   
  
"Oh, that's Ritchie all over," Said Karen sardonically. "He once said that my knowing exactly what I wanted turned him on, but he was just as bad." Karen laughed mirthlessly. "You heard what he said in court yesterday, I liked it as rough as he would give it. That hardly makes me look innocent in the eyes of the jury where the supposedly fake rape allegation is concerned, does it."   
  
"Actually," Said Jo, "That's open for debate. All Ritchie is trying to do is to damage your reputation and threaten your credibility as a witness. But I wouldn't put it past George to focus on something like this."   
  
"Did Ritchie say anything I need to know after I walked out?"   
  
"Nothing important," Said Jo, not relishing the idea of telling Karen how Ritchie had described her.   
  
"Really," Said Karen, "So why did Yvonne get a warning from the Judge?" Jo grinned.   
  
"Not for anything Ritchie said about you. John isn't used to so much audience participation."   
  
"Knowing Yvonne and Cassie as I do, there was bound to be more than usual."   
  
"Tell me about the second time you saw Ritchie," Prompted Jo.   
  
"He turned up at work with a rose, on the day I got back from holiday. He said he'd missed me. I told him I didn't want him turning up at work. One of the other officers had a hen party that night. I wasn't especially looking forward to it, and when Ritchie sent me a text saying come any time, it provided me with a good excuse for leaving. Defense will probably say that this made me look desperate. I remember the next morning he tried to make me late for work." Jo held up a hand to stop Karen in her tracks.   
  
"Could this have been a way to try and discredit you with your boss?"   
  
"I don't know. Jesus, I trusted every bloody word he said!"   
  
"There wasn't any reason for you not to trust him," Said Jo quietly.   
  
"He was the son of Charlie Atkins. At the time, I held the keys to his mother's cell, a woman who was doing time for conspiracy to murder. What more reason could there have been. I don't think I cared one way or the other. Any goodlooking stranger would have done, as long as they didn't know about Fenner."   
  
"Going on that line of philosophy," Said Jo conversationally, "What makes you trust Yvonne Atkins?"   
  
"I've spent the last year getting to know Yvonne. Oh, she's got the Atkins charm coming out of her ears, but that's the only thing that makes her one of them. By that I'm assuming you know about me and her?" Jo smiled.   
  
"I'm not blind," She said matter-of-factly.   
  
"What about the defense? And if so, will it be used to further blacken my professional integrity."   
  
"Yes, George is aware of it," Said Jo, cursing herself for having drawn it to George's attention in the first place. "But I'll appeal to any better nature she still has. What did Ritchie say to try and make you late for work?"   
  
"I told him that I did have superiors, all looking for an excuse and that I didn't want to hand them one. You know what men are like, they'll try anything to make you stay a bit longer."   
  
"John can certainly be very persuasive on occasions," Said Jo, a soft smile lighting up her eyes.   
  
"He suggested picking me up from work for a drink at lunchtime, and didn't seem to like the fact that I wanted to keep our relationship quiet. There was enough talk about my relationship with Fenner for me to want to be cautious."   
  
"You were in a relationship with James Fenner?" Asked Jo in slight astonishment.   
  
"I know," Said Karen, utterly disgusted with herself. "Hard to believe, isn't it."   
  
"Okay, let's move on to the gun," Said Jo. "Why didn't you find it before it was discovered?"   
  
"I was almost late for work that morning. We'd overslept. It frightened the hell out of me when Jim found it. I put it in my desk drawer because we were concentrating on finding Yvonne. I remember when I went to see her, once they'd got her in to segregation. Fenner was there as well. He asked her about the bomb, and she spelled out to us that it was Snowball. Then I asked her about the gun that her son had planted in my handbag. I think her words were, Snowball Merriman's his tart. She's the reason he came to visit me after all these years, to sting me for fifty grand for their get away plan. I thought I knew what shock was. After all, I'd been shown in no uncertain terms what Jim Fenner was capable of. Yvonne said that Ritchie had screwed us both, and she was right. He'd literally screwed the hell out of me and screwed her out of fifty grand and almost out of her release date." Jo remained totally still, though her whole brain seemed to wince at Karen's slightly blase description of her time with Ritchie.   
  
"When did you next see Ritchie?" Asked Jo, already sure of the answer but wanting to be clear about it.   
  
"On the day he was shot."   
  
"And how would you describe, Snowball Merriman's demeanour?" Jo hesitated on the name Snowball, as she been used to referring to her as Ms Pilkinton. Karen suppressed a shudder.   
  
"At first, she was totally calm, like she'd planned it down to the last detail." Jo made a quick note of this. "When we were in the car, she held the gun loosely in her left hand, all the time pointing it at me. She even kept it pointing my way when she phoned Ritchie. Give him his due, I don't think he was happy about her having brought me. It might be hard to believe, but I think he felt slightly guilty."   
  
"There's something interesting about all this," Said Jo, "When you talk about Snowball, everything in your tone of voice, your expression, is still furious at what she put you through. You loathe every thought you have of her. But with Ritchie it's different. Even though he used your profession, your connection with his mother, and to some extent your vulnerability for his own ends, you're not angry with him. You don't even despise him for what he did to you. Any criticism on that score appears to be reserved for yourself, not the man who caused all those things to happen." Karen had returned to her chair, and now sat staring at Jo.   
  
"Did you get a degree in psychology?" She asked, as a way to cover up how thrown she was by Jo's clear insight in to her feelings.   
  
"Human psychology is something you learn as a barrister," Replied Jo, "Often the job involves taking advantage of it. It's not something I'm especially proud of, but if you can partially understand how the opposition's mind works, the more likely you are to be able to trip them up in cross examination."   
  
"Whatever Ritchie might have done in the past," Said Karen, "He did save my life. He didn't have to do that. I'm not entirely sure why he did it, but I think he got in over his head where his feelings for me were concerned. Originally, I was only supposed to be a source of good sex and a way to get the gun in to Larkhall. But he liked what we had too much. He still carried on with it, even after I told Yvonne and she warned him off." Jo visibly winced. Karen smiled. "Yes, that little interview with Yvonne was not one of the nicest things I've ever had to do. I think her words were, I ought to claw your bloody eyes out." Briefly thinking that Karen had far more guts than she did, Jo asked,   
  
"How was Snowball towards you just before Ritchie was shot?"   
  
"She was enjoying it. She was high on the power she had over me. Giving me a black eye seemed to give her so much satisfaction. I vaguely remember Ritchie saying something about her having been in too many crap movies. She hated me for having slept with Ritchie, and if he hadn't stopped her, she'd definitely have killed me. It would have been her icing on the cake of freedom. But Ritchie struggled with her, trying to get the gun away from her. It went off because she wouldn't let go." Jo wrote this down.   
  
"That's definitely something we'll focus on in court. I'm not quite sure what else yet, but the fact that she wouldn't let go of the gun achieved the direct result of Ritchie being shot, is something I need to spell out to the jury."   
  
"You don't seriously expect her to get off, do you?"   
  
"The odds are in our favour," Said Jo cautiously. "But juries never fail to amaze me."   
  
"She has to go down for this," Said Karen determinedly.   
  
"I'll do my best," Said Jo, knowing that if Tracy Pilkinton wasn't found guilty, the legal profession would not be living up to its job to preserve justice.   
  
"Thank you for being so open with me," Said Jo. "I know it hasn't been easy. I was brought up in front of the professional conduct committee once, for having an affair with the Judge I was before. Some of the things they asked were about as personal as its possible to get." Karen looked at Jo with interest.   
  
"I take it judges and barristers are not supposed to be other than professionally involved if they're taking part in the same trial," Karen asked.   
  
"Not strictly, no. John has been forced to learn the art of discretion, not something he's usually famous for." Karen was grateful to Jo for having revealed something of her own private life. It made Karen realise that even a woman in Jo's position was not above being utterly humiliated.   
  
As they walked down the wide stone stairs in to the foyer, Jo caught sight of George making her way outside.   
  
"George," She called, "Have you got a minute?" George didn't need to turn and see who it was. She'd know that deep, slightly husky voice anywhere. She simply turned and waited for Karen and Jo to approach her.   
  
"George, this is Karen Betts," Jo began. "And Karen, this is George Channing QC, or should I say the former Mrs. John Deed." This riled George. She'd worn the trousers in that household, not him.   
  
"At least I managed to get a ring on his finger," Replied George in her usual acid tones.   
  
"This is the woman who'll be attempting to derail you on Thursday," Jo said to Karen, who was looking on with some amusement.   
  
"I'll look forward to it," Said Karen, looking George straight in the eye and letting her know in no uncertain terms that she wouldn't give her an easy ride. As Karen walked out of the front doors of the court, Jo and George stood and watched her.   
  
"She won't fall at the first hurdle you know, George," Said Jo.   
  
"Is that all you wanted to keep me from my cigarette for?" Asked George in utter disdain.   
  
"No, not quite," Replied Jo, hating to have to ask what she knew she must. George turned and walked outside, briefly gesturing to Jo to follow. When they'd both lit up, George asked,   
  
"So, to what do I owe the pleasure?" The reference to pleasure at Jo's company was so insincere that Jo smiled, well used to George's insults by now. Then she became serious.   
  
"I need to ask you not to make any mention of the relationship between Karen Betts and Yvonne Atkins when she's on the stand on Thursday." George took a long, deep, contemplative drag.   
  
"Is there any reason why I should agree to this ludicrous request?"   
  
"Because it won't serve any real purpose, except to further blacken Karen Betts' professional integrity. Surely even you can see that."   
  
"Ah, yes," Replied George, her clipped upper class drawl far more defined with the bite of sarcasm. "I'd forgotten that having been caught in the wrong bed yourself not so long ago, you'd be naturally sympathetic to others in your position."   
  
"You won't forget about that till your dying day, George," Said Jo with scorn. "You enjoyed it too much." George was quiet for a moment, neither denying nor confirming this accusation.   
  
"Are you still sleeping with John?" George asked quietly.   
  
"Oh, and you think if I was I'd tell you," Said Jo in total disgust. "Only for you to set us up like you did the last time."   
  
"Well, just be careful," Warned George, flicking her cigarette towards the middle of the carpark. "Neil still hasn't forgotten the utter humiliation of totally failing to discredit John."   
  
"Is that a threat, George?" Asked Jo, really hoping all that wouldn't get dragged up again.   
  
"No," Said George, "Against my better judgment, it's a friendly warning."   
  
"Well, forgive me for not taking it at face value, won't you."   
  
"Oh, I wouldn't expect any different," Said George, knowing she'd probably rubbed Jo's face in the mud once too often with that stunt with the photographs.   
  
"So, do we have a deal over Karen Betts?" Asked Jo.   
  
"Like I said, simply keeping her reputation intact isn't a good enough reason."   
  
"Then how about the fact that John won't lose this bet if you put proof of the situation in his reach." Jo hadn't wanted to play this last card, but appealing to George's better nature hadn't worked. George's gaze followed a couple of pigeons flying over the parked cars.   
  
"Fine," She said after a while. "But I'm only doing this because it's about time John was proved wrong." Jo smiled.   
  
"I thought you'd see sense in the end," She said. As George walked off towards her car, she called back over her shoulder,   
  
"You owe me for this." On hearing this, Jo was left wondering what owing a favour to Georgia Channing might involve. 


	44. Part Forty Four

Part Forty Four   
  
"I'll be at work today, Yvonne." Karen's familiar voice spoke into Yvonne's ear, as filtered through the mobile phone contact."I'll be keeping an eye on Larkhall and making sure everyone's behaving themselves."  
  
Yvonne immediately felt a pang of disappointment which indicated to her well enough the way her feelings were heading. While sitting for hours on a none too comfortable bench, no better than a church pew, Yvonne had become accustomed to Karen at her side even the lowering cloud that Lauren represented counterbalanced the feeling of well being.  
  
"You mean that Denny or Al might be kicking off," Yvonne asked with a similar slight levity of tone.  
  
"I mean Sylvia, Yvonne.Too much time without me around gives her the wrong ideas. You be good with Merriman in the box. Don't want to have to bail you out of Farringdon Police Station." Karen finished on a semi serious note.  
  
"I've got Cassie to keep me out of trouble. And Roisin and Lauren." Yvonne laughed. "Don't work too hard."  
  
"Phone me up when the trial finishes and I'll meet you straight after." Karen's last words sounded by the faintest sounds of a kiss.  
  
The ancient courtroom of the Old Bailey had not changed for centuries apart from the invention of the electric light. Nothing else had changed except another layer of paint on the walls. Today saw a new departure as Jo had, with the aid of the resourceful Coope, plugged in an overhead projector which threw a shaft of light upon the back wall.  
  
"Giving a lecture today, Mrs Mills," John Deed enquired of Jo as he walked up to take his accustomed place. Jo carefully wrote 'Snowball' in neat letters in the middle of the screen which was thrown upon the wall in huge letters. It was an enormous illuminated blackboard for all to see.  
  
"Yes, and I know who'll be teacher's pet," George riposted acidly to an unheeding Jo.  
  
"Karen will be sorry she's missed the illuminations," Yvonne spoke out of the side of the mouth to a grinning Cassie.  
  
"I'd love to draw a gallows round Snowball's nobbing neck." Cassie replied to Lauren who grinned in appreciation. Cassie could always be counted upon to lighten things.  
  
Lauren seemed more friendly while Karen was away but a little standoffish to Yvonne. Even so, they were all keyed up in seeing a major drama unfold, of Snowball being finally placed in the dock after being the unwatchable presence in the sidelines that they tried to avoid as much as they could. John Deed resumed his seat with his usual outward imperturbability though secretly, he was very sharp and alert, ready for anything after yesterday's performance. In turn, George was a low key presence and Jo committed to memory the last few details and her hopes to chance fate and the scales of justice.  
  
Di Barker escorted Snowball into the court and Snowball was immediately the focus of attention of all onlookers. She was dressed in her tight black jeans and the very same low cut purple top which exposed as much of her breasts as she could get away with. Her blond hair curled in waves past her shoulders and her brilliant false white smile bestowed an unfocussed acknowledgement to all sides of what she saw as her star status. How she narcissistically saw herself was how she truly saw herself as being.  
  
"That murdering tart means to charm and smarm her way out of this one," cursed Yvonne.  
  
"The evil bitch," agreed Lauren."She looks as if she's going to the Oscars." At least they had that anger and loathing towards Snowball to unite them.  
  
"We'd have been the ones to drag Karen back, this time." Cassie said with a light laugh, to lighten the atmosphere."  
  
Roisin prayed silently for those left behind in Larkhall and those since released and for the strength of mind for Jo to steer her way through this trial while Babs lips mouthed similar thoughts.   
  
Jo Mills took her accustomed place, her mind whizzing with the sheer multiplicity of the whole conspiracy going round in her mind. She must not give way to confusion, she thought, or else the jury whom she had to convince would go blank faced with total confusion and the case would collapse. A quick peek up to John Deed saw his understanding smile of reassurance which steadied her nerves at the crucial moment. Once she got started, she would be all right, she reassured herself. She always was, up till now. Just pace yourself and don't rush it.  
  
"In your testimony yesterday, Ms Pilkinton, you said distinctly that, I quote '. Mr Fenner "suggested that you might be interested in knowing that Larkhall ran the interlibrary loan scheme.' and that he behaved in a way that was not consistent with his responsibilities as a Prison Officer," Jo started in an easy relaxed way.  
  
"The guy acted like a real creep, ma'am," Snowball's Florida drawl and her wide expansive smile tried to charm Jo. "Hey, he was staring down at me all the time that he was talking to me."  
  
Privately, Jo could just imagine a sleazy shifty character like Fenner acting in the way that he did but had to make the best of a good argument but a bad witness.   
  
"So, what sort of books did you have with you that made Mr Fenner think that you might be a possible librarian, Ms Pilkinton."  
  
"I'd kinda got a couple of movie star books with me, ma'am," Snowball replied with that fixed smile and southern drawl."Books that would help me with my craft."  
  
"I place before you, my lord, the exhibit of the list of items that Ms Pilkinton declared when she was first admitted to Larkhall Prison - Item 1A in your bundle, my lord - and it consists of 'English Drama 1588 - 1642, Films of Gloria Swanson, The Divine Garbo, The life of Joan Crawford, Pictorial History of the Silver Screen.' I also place the advert of Ms Pilkinton in her stage guise of 'Snowball Merriman', the name that she has habitually referred to throughout the course of the trial as a somewhat curious badge of pride- item.   
  
"A girl can have her dreams. Joan Crawford started off doing skin flicks as Lucille LeSoeur in Hollywood. I promised miself that all the girls in my class in Wigan would be laughing on the other side of their faces when they saw me on the silver screen while they ate their popcorn watching me at the local Gaumont cinema." Snowball's veneer cracked and her harsh Northern tones expressed her pent up anger." Besides Snowball Merriman sounds sexier than Tracy Pilkinton." Snowball suddenly and disturbingly switched back to her smoother, sexier Floridaspeak, remembering her audience at all times.   
  
"So you are telling me that it was Mr Fenner who suggested to you the idea that you could be library redband at Larkhall library in return for sexual favours, Ms Pilkinton." Jo Mills quietly interposed, her prosaic question getting in the way of Snowball's advert on her mental film credits that were ready to roll.  
  
"Like the way he treated me like a whore." Snowball's harsh staccato Wigan voice cracked back."Half the women in prison end up that way because of some man in power who's treated women that way from when they were little."  
  
"Ms Pilkinton," John Deed's voice recalled Snowball Merriman to order more firmly than usual. He felt very uncomfortable as if he were on trial for his own colourful sexual history. Womaniser though he admitted he was, he denied the implicit charge of being a sexual predator."You will confine your remarks to exactly what happened. While you may, or may not be making valid general observations, a court of law is hardly the time and place for it.  
  
"Sorry, sir." Snowball's little girl voice, appealing for sympathy shifted roles yet again."I was forgetting meself."  
  
"So the fact that your boyfriend Ritchie Atkins started work at Clapham North library May 3rd 2002, four days before you Snowball were admitted to Larkhall Prison on May 7th 2002 was purely coincidental." Jo Mills spoke in her softest, most dangerous tones. "And two days before your boyfriend Ritchie Atkins visited Yvonne Atkins in Larkhall on May 5th 2002 is likewise a coincidence. And the evidence given before in the trial is that the suggestion about the interlibrary scheme came from you and not Mr Fenner."  
  
"As God is my witness," Snowball's rugged dependable Wigan accent rang out."Every word I speak is the truth." Already, Snowball hated this posh woman before her who refused to show any weakness. It was always women who were the dangerous ones, like her, like Betts, like Atkins.  
  
"She doesn't follow the same God that I do," Babs uttered with a degree of hatred for this evil woman that, for once in her life, she felt unashamed of and no inhibitions of both thinking and saying what came to her most naturally.  
  
"Steady, Babs." Yvonne joked."I don't want to have to go the local nick and have to stand bail for you. Besides, we'd be on our best behaviour for this judge."  
  
"You, well behaved, and for the law with your record." Cassie joked.  
  
"Yeah, for this judge. If I'd come across him years ago, I'd have stayed straight."  
  
"So might I." Cassie retorted, a grin splitting her face from ear to ear.   
  
"This will be put to the test in due course," Jo Mills replied ominously.  
  
"I refer the court once again to exhibit 3LD, the computerised record of the interlibrary loans from a Clapham North Library to Larkhall Prison which was salvaged from the fire. If you observe, there are a profusion of requests made from the exact time that Mr Atkins started work for Clapham North library from only the one library. For whom were these books requested, Ms Pilkinton?"  
  
"For me, ma'am. So that I could progress my art, surely." Snowball's brightly insincere voice changed roles again."Can't a girl advance her mind if she wants to."  
  
"The records show that not one book was ever recorded as being sent back to Clapham North library from Larkhall prison"  
  
"I hate giving books back, ma'am."   
  
"Despite the fact that forensic evidence after the fire establishes in its findings of the remains of a hardback book containing traces of explosives , two Anthony Trollope volumes of accumulated works, item 1L in the bundle, my lord." Jo paused to let the words hang on the air. It was a cheap shot which she would normally not have resorted to but the back of her mind was finding that this whole contrived act was getting under her skin, only she had to focus in on the matter to hand.  
  
"These two books were listed as being received in from Clapham North library, amazing coincidence, just five days before the fire and happen to be very large black leather bound books. I have brought along two identical volumes which I traced down for the court to look at," and Jo heaved two very large, ancient, leather bound volumes out of a large holdall which landed with a thud on the bench before her.  
  
"Remember these, Ms Pilkinton. I think you might not be as avid a reader as you have made yourself out to be or else you would not have been so careless with them as to let them be incinerated."   
  
John Deed wondered how a woman with such a slim frame would be able to manhandle such weighty volumes and he gestured to the stronger of the ushers to give her a hand.  
  
"I am not bringing these volumes into court as evidence to be numbered but as facsimiles of the real books that were used as concealment for the bomb that blew the library apart."  
  
And Jo Mills let the trap shut tight on her. She picked up her marker pen, drew in a line to the left, wrote 'Ritchie' in neat letters on the screen. She drew a similar line going upwards and to the left and wrote "Fenner." It was like drawing the spokes of a wheel with Snowball as the hub and Ritchie and Fenner being two points on the circumference of the wheel. The circle of conspiracy was being marked out for all to see. Cassie's idle remark about a childhood game called hangman wasn't that far out.   
  
Snowball's face was rigid with shock seeing these two volumes look up at her accusingly. The last time she had seen their like was the moment when she was at her most hyper with the thought of £50,000 in her greedy hands and to hell with anyone who stood in her way. She had sliced with her razor blade rectangular shapes into the written thoughts of an author's experiences of long ago, carelessly scattering the remains so that a fount of knowledge would harbour a crude home made bomb. Not that she gave two thoughts to this. Like everything else, it was a means to an end. The shock to her was that she had broken the Eleventh Commandment, the only one she believed in, "Thou Shalt Not Be found Out."  
  
"These matters are extremely complex for a jury to fathom and I ask your forbearance. On this OHP, I shall try and demonstrate the circle of conspiracy for you so that it will help you to concentrate on the fundamentals of the case."  
  
"In the testimony that you gave the court yesterday, Ms Pilkinton," Jo continued, "You stated that it was Mr Fenner who asked you to spy for him, find out what Atkins was up too, that, to quote, "He said he had her on a tight leash, and that if I had any trouble from her, he'd have her on the end of his spike" Were those his very words, Ms Pilkinton."  
  
"I guess so," Snowball replied warily in her Floridaspeak but becoming more confident. "They hated each other."   
  
"Which might make him susceptible to a concocted tale designed to set him off on a wild goose chase when in testimony given earlier before and, I quote,  
  
'When she'd been in Larkhall for about a fortnight, she told me there was going to be a break out', that it would be Yvonne Atkins and that you were believed even if you had been there for two weeks because Yvonne Atkins had made two previous escape attempts.' I put it to you, Ms Pilkinton that you floated this rumour to distract attention from your very real escape attempt because, again in your own words ' My feeding him little snippets about what Yvonne Atkins was supposedly up to was my way of keeping him sweet. It always pays to have an officer on your side.' Can you explain the curious use of the word, 'supposedly', Miss Pilkinton? It suggests a certain element of falsehood and deception, does it not?"   
  
"It's all right with your fancy airs and your law degree, Miss High and Mighty. You don't know what it's like to claw your way up from the gutter where my mother brought me up. I didn't want to grow up the same way so I followed me dreams, to Hollywood or so I thought, till I got turned into a junkie and a whore. It was only meeting Ritchie," and here her face softened, like a lovestruck teenager, "that made me feel that some good could come out of it all. And finding God." Snowball spoke up in her best sincere gritty down to earth North County accent, ending superbly on a religious note as she automatically held her hands together, palms upward.  
  
"We have heard much testimony, Ms Pilkinton, about how, as a lay preacher, you turned the doubting congregation around with your Parable of the Cigarette Lighter. Tell me more about it. "John Deed interposed. He had been unnaturally restrained in the course of the hearing but the urge to intervene and feel more part of the proceedings and not like some god on high had become unbearable.   
  
Snowball was in her element as she grabbed at the chance to polish up her rather soiled image. The knowledge that her liberty was at stake added inner desperation. Can't let an actress see your stage nerves, she reasoned to herself.  
  
"I came to the country where I was born because I could not stand the ungodly ways of Hollywood." She exclaimed, an evangelical light in her eyes. "I had seen the degradation women suffer at the hands of covetous men seeking their satisfaction from the innocent flesh of women who followed the same dream that I had. Like me, they had their dreams of stardom only to queue at the backdoor of a man who promised to make them rich and famous. They just had to show what they were worth on the Casting Couch. You know what that is. Under some man's sweaty body while he screws you and, when he'd had his fill, passes you to his friend who teases you with that same dream. Prick teasers, men like them call us. Yet what is more cruel than to offer a young girl the chance of being a star only to make her over into being a whore. The odd bit part here, the odd bit part there, and you have the rent to pay, bills to pay. And you wake up some day and you realise that you've got no further than if you had stayed at home and stuffed chicken in a chicken factory. At least you are being paid honest wages."  
  
The tirade of rage poured out in a stream of words that shook the audience rigid as, behind the obvious con tricks of her earlier testimony. At last, the real Snowball appeared under her theatrical props.  
  
"…………So that's why I became a Christian," Snowball smiled shyly, clutching a tiny pocket Bible. "And why I wanted so much to spread the faith when the rest of the girls were starting to doubt."  
  
"Yes, Ms Pilkinton," Jo spoke softly, a part of even a sceptic like her being stealthily influenced against her will. "So when you had done Reverent Mills a favour, you asked him for a favour in return."  
  
"The Reverend was very kind to me, ma'am." Snowball reverted back to Floridaspeak.  
  
"In earlier testimony, his exact words of explanation were. 'Her mother had been taken ill. She explained that her mother was the only member of the family in her life as her father had cruelly abandoned her mother when she was very young, had beaten and abused her mother. She had always been close to her and that she had tried to get through on the phone but the hospital kept passing her from one person to another." Is that a fair description of the reasons why you made use of the Reverend's phone?"   
  
"It surely is, ma'am." Snowball beamed.  
  
"Then, Miss Pilkinton, which hospital was your mother in. Where does she live." Jo asked at her most innocent.  
  
Snowball stopped mid stride. That simple question had not occurred to her.   
  
Jo reached for her felt tip and another line was drawn in vertically upwards and the word "Reverend" was inscribed. Jo smiled in satisfaction as the immense complexities of the case were reduced to a simple geometric structure.  
  
"I don't know. I just got the phone number to phone up on. Last thing I'll do is to pester me mum about where she's living. With me locked up, how the 'ell could I go and see her. Might as well be in Greenland or Southend for all it mattered."  
  
"We shall pass on to the phone calls you supposedly made to your poor ill mother," Jo added with growing confidence and placing the emphasis where it could do the most damage, "and I refer the court to exhibit 5D, the coat that the Reverend Mills positively identified that he donated to you to form the altar cloth for a backdrop for the Open Day, the occasion when the bomb went off. I ask the court to recall testimony from Mrs Mills where she positively identified the coat that she was wearing when she tried to escape.  
  
"Mrs Mills," John intoned."I am aware that you have an extraordinarily long and complex case to present which seems likely to spread the entire length of the day but might this be a good point to adjourn the hearing for lunch. It will enable all parties, especially the jury, to follow the case when they have time to reflect. Court is adjourned." At a nod from Jo. With a click, she switched the light off which, for once would bring no respite for Snowball.   
  
The court assembled in a breathless hush in the afternoon and Jo clicked on the overhead light and the names etched out in cross examination with the sharp defined lines leapt into light. The two black volumes spread their ancient weight of learning to the side of where Jo stood, luckier than their incinerated counterparts at Larkhall prison, Jo had not finished with them yet.  
  
"Ms Pilkinton, you have testified that your boyfriend Mr Atkins…….couldn't get enough of me, that he kept in contact with you whilst you were in prison but it was   
  
'On and off' that he 'chose to start seeing Miss Betts who stole Mr Atkins from under your nose."  
  
"That's what happened. Men are like that," Snowball replied sulkily.  
  
"But Mr Atkins was different you say. Yet we have heard testimony that it was Mr Atkins who made the running apart from the one phone call she made."  
  
"He comes back to me." Snowball shrugged her shoulders.  
  
"Yet we have evidence from a series of phone calls from Larkhall Prison phone records, - exhibit 12F in the bundle of papers, clearly establishing that the phone was used to ring Ritchie's mobile on several occasions. I put it to you that these calls were made far from calling your poor ill mother that, in fact were made to Mr Atkins, especially from testimony from Mr Ajit Khan and Mrs Atkins that a phone call was made immediately before the bomb explosion from and in the expectation that Mr Mills would be absent from the room. I put it to you that this is how the conspiracy was hatched in all its facets, including, I suspect the way that Miss Betts was ensnared to enable the gun to be smuggled into Larkhall prison, the same gun that you used to force her to drive you to meet your lover, Mr Atkins.   
  
"Pardon me, ma'am. But that bitch stole my man as God is my word." ." Snowball replied brightly, that false perfect smile somehow back in place. Her reply had a peculiar reply that started in Floridaspeak and shifted abruptly into her Wigan accent.  
  
Jo shook her head in wonder that this woman had this peculiar rubber quality that bounced back in the most unexpected fashion. Something in her did not function in the way a normal human being did, even those she had arraigned at the dock.   
  
"We'll let the jury be the judge of that." Jo replied shortly, not wishing to get drawn into Snowball's fractured world.  
  
"Let us turn to the matter of the bouquet of flowers that Mr Atkins had delivered to Yvonne Atkins, Ms Pilkinton." Jo started to say.  
  
"'Scuse me, ma'am." Snowball jumped in."Did I have anything to do with what that sweet boy did for his mother?" Snowball's American drawl and suitably bemused expression attempted to put the same distance between her and the bouquet as her choice of words did for Yvonne.  
  
"I am coming to that in due course, Ms Pilkinton. The court has heard testimony from Mr Atkins himself that the words on the card read "I love you, Mum." He directly qualified it by emphasizing with the words 'No more, no less.' Yet I direct the court to Exhibit P1 in the bundle of papers which I would like to be extracted since it is of particular significance."   
  
At this point, John Deed looked at the index list at the front of the bundle felt through the weighty bundle of documents and found the plastic sheet. He carefully extracted the card and leaned forward to place it in Jo Mills hands.  
  
"The card I have in front of me has been in the possession of the police immediately after the explosion and, besides the floral motif, bears the words "Don't place your Bets till the rod's in K's bag. I love you, Mum. Ritchie." Is this the exact same card that you gave to Mr Fenner to alert him to a supposed conspiracy. Testimony has been given by Mr Fenner……."  
  
"And you believe that creep?" sneered Snowball in her hard Wigan accent.  
  
"You might be as well as to listen to the testimony before it is given, Ms Pilkinton." John Deed intervened. "That is usual in a court of law. Or haven't you read the script?"   
  
"I'm sorry, sir." Snowball flashed her best seductive smile at John Deed who found it hard to remain wooden faced.  
  
"Pray continue with your question, Mrs Mills." John Deed intoned, deliberately wrenching his gaze away from Snowball towards the healthy reassuring normality of Jo.  
  
Mr Fenner testified that you asked him. 'Isn't rod another name for a gun? That means there's a gun hidden in Karen Betts' handbag to help Atkins escape.' The question I ask you, which Atkins, Ms Pilkinton?" Jo finished, the tone of her voice pitched with a hardness and dominance that placed her under scrutiny for all to see as if she were pinned under a microscope.  
  
"There's nothing I wouldn't do with my man." Snowball replied, her act sustained even at this point.   
  
"By which, I ask the court to conclude that there was a deliberate plan to place Yvonne Atkins in the frame of a third attempt at a prison escape by the snare of the bouquet of flowers which is most calculated to prey on a mother's natural susceptibilities. At the same time, there was a secondary objective in implicating Miss Betts as at least an unconscious accomplice at a moment when there was no reason to suppose that Mr Atkins and his mother had achieved a touching reconciliation after a painful estrangement. And there was, from Mrs Atkins point of view." Jo threw at Snowball.  
  
Yvonne had watched Jo all this time…………  
  
Jo carefully drew a line for all those in the court to see from 'Snowball' diagonally downwards and to the left and wrote 'Karen'. She drew a similar line vertically downward from the word "Snowball" and where the line stopped wrote "Karen." She turned around with a smile of satisfaction and let the illuminated vision focus the attention of the jury who had followed the exposition with total fascination.   
  
Snowball's eyes swiveled around the courtroom, the downturn of her mouth on both sides expressing truly .She was like a hunted animal who was pinned in on nearly all sides by the hunters with the big exception that this hunt was morally justified.  
  
"Let us turn to the last piece of the jigsaw, the part played unwittingly by Al McKenzy.   
  
She testified that you asked her to steal Yvonne Atkins's radio because, I quote 'her radio alarm clock was disturbing Ms Pilkinton's beauty sleep. She asked me to steal it for her and bring it to you in the library. I refer the court to evidence given earlier in the proceedings that this corresponds to the remains of the radio alarm clock, exhibit 6A in the bundle of evidence. I put it to you, Ms Pilkinton, that the radio was used for a more deadlier purpose than broadcasting the latest hits on Radio 1, namely to be constructed as a timing detonator for the bomb, that it could be constructed in perfect security where, with your enhanced status as a red band, you had direct and almost sole access to the library. Let me ask you, Ms Pilkinton, what happened to the bomb detonator, sorry radio alarm clock, if you are going to find an alternative explanation for your actions."  
  
"Course I need mi beauty sleep," Snowball counter attacked."Are you going to say, Miss High and Mighty, that I make bombs for a living? I know nothing about summat like that. Only reading mi lines."  
  
Jo was momentarily thrown by this. At the back of her mind, she knew that this was a hidden weak spot in her case. Then again, who knows what Snowball had learned in her troubled life and just how far back her criminal past stretched and the breadth of it.  
  
"I leave the jury to be the judge of this along with everything else you have sworn on the bible as a Christian. Now let us turn to your actions on the morning before the explosion. Al McKenzie also testified that the stalls for the open day had been set up in the art room, but at the last minute the prison officers made you move the library books into the corridor and that, I quote 'It scared the shit out of her.' you told her to 'quit bugging her, that Al McKenzy 'helped move all the books in to the corridor.' She described you as   
  
'Really weird', that 'first you insisted that they had to be in alphabetical order, but when you asked her if S came after or before T, you just told me to put them anywhere.'  
  
Can you explain your rather inconsistent behaviour, Ms Pilkinton before I do?"   
  
"Don't know. Everyone was bugging me that day. You just get that way." Snowball replied with real venom in her eyes. Even she couldn't lie her way out of this.  
  
"Then I will," Jo riposted with all the confidence in the world. Her breathing was audible to anyone near her, most unusual for someone as cool in court to her.'You searched out for the two volumes that were precious to you and not for their literary content. These volumes." And Jo brandished one of the volumes aloft with all her strength for all to see.  
  
"I cannot definitely and conclusively prove that the duplicates of these volumes contained the bombs in question but I can show that these represent, in their context, the focus of all Ms Pilkinton's twisted schemes, the purpose for which she twisted so many people round her little finger- for her escape with her lover, Mr Atkins and £50,000 that she stole from Mrs Atkins."  
  
And with a flourish, a final line was drawn from the word 'Snowball' in a straight line to the right finishing the word "Al" and a circle was drawn round all the names of the victims of the conspiracy, the circle of conspiracy. At that, Jo Mills sat down, drained and exhausted and the courtroom mentally sat round each other with Snowball stood, finally cornered and at bay. This time, she was the focus of attention and her deeds were written in illuminated script projected on the nearest to a screen that she would ever achieve in her life. This time, however, this level of fame wasn't welcome.  
  
George had stood on the sidelines, uncharacteristically silent through this cross examination. The forensic skill of a barrister of long standing gave her the ability to argue a case from either side of the line with equal sense of conviction. This time, the long standing antagonism she had felt for Jo was overlain by the fact that jo spoke the absolute truth and a part of her entered Jo's world, despite herself. Her own case didn't stand up and she knew it. All she knew was what would Neil Houghton say when he heard of this. If she was a bad loser, the thought flashed on her for the first time in her life that he was a far worse loser than she was.   
  
"Take your time, Mrs Mills." John Deed said in his measured tones though his heart had leaped in admiration at the unsurpassed heights that Jo had achieved, as momentous in his mind as the first explorer to climb the heights of Mount Everest.   
  
"My lord, there is little left to demonstrate on the lesser charge of grievous bodily harm of Mr Atkins but I have one question to ask of you,Ms Pilkinton. Where did you get the gun with which you forced Miss Betts to drive you out of Larkhall?"  
  
"Can't say."Snowball uttered tersely in her Wigan voice."It just turned up."  
  
"Indeed," Jo smiled at this pathetic reply."So you have similarly nothing to say denying the forensic evidence listed in the bundle of papers….."  
  
"All these papers," Snowball sneered."Do you get off at night in planning to do me down? All that work for just little old me?" Snowball finished, changing back to Floridaspeak but without the false charm.  
  
"As I was about to say," Jo cut back into the verbal crossfire, from experience inside and outside court,.hardly raising her voice."The forensic evidence listed item 5B, identifying the bullet extracted from Mr Atkins body with the shot fired from your gun, or was it Mr Atkins's gun." She finished with hard precise pronunciation of the consonants. For just that second, a few genuine tears came to Snowball's eyes which she brushed away with an angry gesture.  
  
"Hold it a moment, Mrs Mills." John Deed interposed, his sharp eyes having focussed on an area of skin right by Snowball's left eye which her hair had carefully trailed down over."Ms Pilkinton, I insist that you explain how and exactly when did you come by that injury."  
  
"Fell down a flight of stairs at Larkhall. Steps are slippy. It's happened before." Snowball replied sulkily.  
  
You bitch, Snowball. Yvonne mouthed to empty air. Your sneaking ways overheard from the one occasion that we were talking about the old days when we'd shoved Bodybag down a flight of steps. I'll tell Karen about that ,one of these days.  
  
"I refer you to what is hopefully my final reference to the evidence listed, the medical report dated June 16th 2002 from Larkhall Prison , one day after the explosion which dressed what appears to be human scratch marks. I think that this flatly contradicts   
  
.Ms Pilkinton's testimony that 'she had no reason to fear my fellow inmates.' I cannot speculate who, of the prison inmates inflicted these wounds," and here Jo's eyes flicked up to Yvonne and a faint smile passed her lips," But I think the court can safely conclude what the other prisoners really felt about Ms Pilkinton seeing that one of them died in the fire and six others were nearly killed. The prisoners privately identified her as the author of it, witness the failed escape attempt. The only possible conclusion that can be drawn from why Ms Pilkinton refused the offer of voluntary segregation intended for her safety was that it was the necessary precondition of her second attempt at escape.   
  
"In connection with this, I offer the only words of truth Ms Pilkinton has uttered which was her testimony yesterday and, I quote. 'The stupid git just had to try and save Karen Betts' miserable life. Ritchie was trying to get the gun off me. He told me I was going too far. I was only giving her what she deserved. Always the way with a bloke though, isn't it. No matter who they sleep with, no matter how pointless it is, they still have a soft spot for them. He thought he'd try and play the hero. I didn't mean to shoot him, it was an accident. If he hadn't tried to stop me blowing that bitch's brains out, he'd still be able to walk.'"   
  
Jo paused for a few minutes as she was feeling really emotionally drained, out of breath and her voice was starting to crack.  
  
"My final question to you, Ms Pilkinton, is that I see that you were apprehended at Gatwick Airport with a consignment of a kilo of cocaine in your bags. Can you explain the following to me, how you were able to slip through Miami airport although your name was on the front page of the newspapers, yet you chose to go into a security hornets nest of Heathrow Airport of all places which would be certain to catch you. The events of September 11th 2001 would make that plain to anyone."  
  
For once in her life, Snowball had nothing to say.  
  
"In which case, the only conclusions that can be drawn are that, firstly, you planned to get caught, secondly that you could escape the electric chair in Florida and, thirdly, that you would end up in Larkhall Prison where you knew from Mr Atkins that his mother was in prison and that would come in very useful. Everything else flows from this."  
  
"Does this conclude your case." John Deed intoned, restraining the urge to applaud the finest moment he had ever witnessed inside a court.   
  
"Yes, my lord." Jo replied, very huskily, her voice hardly able to articulate by then.  
  
A dead silence settled over the court as the OHP threw large illuminated script on the ancient walls of the Old Bailey making the extraordinary complexities somehow crystal clear for all to see . Jo was utterly exhausted but she knew that she would start to climb into the extraordinary mental high of the reaction post trial comedown. Perhaps this was the ultimate addiction of being a practicing barrister.   
  
Yvonne, Lauren, Cassie, Roisin and Babs just sat there spellbound feeling justice coming alive so intensely before their eyes, flowing through their veins, justice so richly felt if delayed. George stood silent, for the first time lost in admiration at Jo's performance. She was professional enough that nothing in her past intense jealousy could deny. And Snowball felt a blind hatred of everything around her, of life itself, as Di led her back to where she knew now Larkhall was her destiny, not the silver screen. 


	45. Part Forty Five

Part Forty Five   
  
Jo was dead on her feet. That day's cross examination had completely taken it out of her. She leaned against the wall outside the court and searched in her handbag for her faithful nicotine companions. Finding only an empty packet, she briefly thought she might cry with tiredness. George appeared through the doors and took note of Jo's fruitless searching.   
  
"That's the only downside of smoking," George said, holding out her packet, "When you run out of them." Jo greatfully took one and lit up.   
  
"Much as I hate to admit it," Continued George, "I was impressed at your performance today." This was a real complement from George, and Jo knew it'd taken a lot for her to say it.   
  
"Thank you," She replied quietly. They watched as a green MG sports car pulled in to the carpark and came to a stop next to a red Farari. As Karen Betts got out and moved towards them, they both assumed the obvious that Karen had come to meet Yvonne. Karen walked up the steps and greeted Jo with,   
  
"How did it go?" Jo took a long drag.   
  
"I think fairly successful might describe it," Jo replied. There came a snort of laughter from George. She ditched her cigarette and opened one of the doors to go back in, but turned to face Karen.   
  
"I would stay and tell you just how successful Jo was today," Said George, "But as we're crossing swords tomorrow, it would be slightly unethical of me." As George moved through the door, they were joined by the others. On seeing Jo, Cassie said,   
  
"If I'm ever in court again, will you defend me?" Jo smiled.   
  
"It'd be a pleasure."   
  
"I could have done with you a few years ago," Said Yvonne, giving her a broad smile.   
  
"I liked what you did with the OHP," Said Cassie, the only one of them really familiar with such things.   
  
"Let's just say that was a last minute wave of inspiration."   
  
"Got Snowball going though," Said Cassie, "And at least now the jury can see how she reeled everyone in." Me included, thought Karen.   
  
As they all walked towards their cars, Karen said to Yvonne,   
  
"Do you feel like coming home with me? Ever since Sylvia found out about what happened with Ritchie, she's been insufferable. She's supposed to be escorting Snowball tomorrow, but I've half a mind to ban her from court. I could really do with some company." Yvonne looked at her. The strain of having to watch Snowball Merriman defend herself had got to both of them.   
  
"Yeah, okay," Said Yvonne, "It probably wouldn't do me and Lauren any harm to have some space from each other."   
  
"Have you still not made up after what happened on Monday?"   
  
"Oh, we're speaking," Replied Yvonne sardonically, "But only the bare necessities." Yvonne dug in her pocket and handed Lauren the car keys.   
  
"I might be home later," She said, hoping Lauren wouldn't comment on it.   
  
"Nice to see she hasn't lost her touch," Said Lauren acidly. Yvonne took a deep breath, about to say something in return, but then thought better of it.   
  
"Don't do anything I wouldn't do," Called Cassie fondly, trying to take the sting out of Lauren's words. When she joined Roisin in their car, Cassie said, "There's going to be a lot of problems there, which is the last thing Yvonne and Karen need."   
  
"Do you realise just how peculiar that sounds?" Said Roisin. "Saying Yvonne and Karen like that."   
  
"I know," Said Cassie smiling. "They look good together, and Lauren hates the very idea of it."   
  
"It's exactly the same as Michael and Niamh were with you,"   
  
"But they're children," Said Cassie in disgust. "Lauren's twenty four for god's sake."   
  
"It makes no difference," Said Roisin, clearly speaking from experience. "She still can't handle the fact that someone else is making her mother happy."   
  
As Karen started the engine, with Yvonne sitting beside her, she switched on the CD player.   
  
"I think music's the only thing that's going to work today," She said.   
  
"I've got this," Said Yvonne with a smile as Heart's music filled the car. As it was still blazing with heat, Karen opened all the windows and the sunroof. The full-bodied voices of the two women began slowly to eat away at the tension surrounding Karen's soul. She could never remain wholly wound up when listening to their outpouring of everything from lust to anger. Just now, the slightly raucous edge to some of their songs was exactly what she needed. As they sat at interminable traffic lights, Karen cursed having to drive through London's rush hour. At least when she was at Larkhall, she could always work late so as to avoid this true embodiment of all life's irritations. As she again paused to allow a stream of cars to pass in front of her, a man looking no older than twenty-five, leered at them, clearly liking these two sensationally attractive women in what had to be a very expensive car. Karen gave him an incredibly rude hand gesture which made Yvonne grin. As the line of cars they were in moved forward, Karen flicked the CD to the angriest track on it. When Yvonne heard it, she smiled in recognition. As the words began, Yvonne joined Karen in pouring scorn on the male population as a whole.   
  
"I'm so tired of these men trying to impress me with nothing." They were both equally surprised to hear the other's voice. They exchanged a grin in the driving mirror. It was noticeable how they both dropped an octave when the singer went too high. When they reached the end of the second chorus, Karen's face was flushed and Yvonne laughed.   
  
"I feel better after that," Said Karen, feeling some of the tension go out of her.   
  
"Yeah, me too," Said Yvonne, surprised that putting her voice to such an angry song had felt so therapeutic. When they reached Karen's flat, she ejected the CD and took it in with her. Yvonne had never seen Karen's place before, and she was pleasantly surprised. The wide, airy lounge had a balcony at one end and wide windows looking out on to the street at the other. Karen liked minimal furniture, a table and chairs near to the balcony doors and a sofa and chairs round the television. Yvonne spied a small computer in one corner, and a stereo in another. There was the door to the kitchen at one side, and opposite, a small passage that clearly led to bedroom and bathroom. Karen went round opening windows and doors, to let in the sun and the early evening breeze. She poured them both a large scotch on ice and sank gratefully in to the sofa and lit a cigarette. Yvonne walked round, examining her books and CD's and a couple of pictures of Ross.   
  
"He's a good-looking kid," Yvonne observed.   
  
"Oh, I know," Said Karen, "Looks as innocent as the day he was born. It's just a shame it only goes skin deep." Karen was watching her with a soft smile on her face.   
  
"Sorry," Said Yvonne, "I'm a bit of a nosy cow when it comes to other people's houses."   
  
"Be my guest," Said Karen, feeling that she could get used to Yvonne being in her space.   
  
"I didn't know you were a fan of Patricia Cornwell," Said Yvonne looking at Karen's bookcase.   
  
"Oh yes. Kay Scarpetta's a bit of a hero of mine. She deals with thoroughly irritating men, psychopaths and dead bodies on a regular basis, and still manages to look sensational."   
  
"Sounds a bit like you," Said Yvonne with a smile. Karen laughed.   
  
"I'm waiting for her new one to come out. It's due out in October, so I hope riotous inmates and strike-hungry officers can wait a week before kicking off."   
  
"I wouldn't bet on it," Said Yvonne with a grin. Karen picked the remote control off the coffee table and flicked on the stereo, and smartly turned it off again when she heard the unmistakable sounds of Beautiful South.   
  
"Leave it on," Said Yvonne. "I like them." Despite her better judgment, Karen did so.   
  
"Are you hungry?" Asked Karen, moving towards the kitchen, wanting anything to take her mind off the words she was sure Yvonne would hear.   
  
"Not hugely," Said Yvonne, still looking at Karen's CD's. Karen rummaged in the fridge, and as she really needed to go shopping, she decided on omelettes. Retrieving ham, cheese and mushrooms, together with a box of eggs, she began chopping. Yvonne came and stood in the kitchen doorway.   
  
"Do you want me to do anything?"   
  
"No thank you." Yvonne thought she could detect a return of the tension that Karen had exuded for the last couple of days. She walked out on to the balcony, wondering if Karen wasn't liking the invasion of her space as much as she'd made out, but this was ridiculous. Yvonne knew one thing for certain, if Karen ever had a problem with anything between them, she'd say so. Yvonne allowed the words of the man and woman of Beautiful South to wash over her. They were singing now about Greta Garbo.   
  
"God help the actress who doesn't know the script." Yvonne frowned at the early evening sun. Snowball Merriman had known her script all right, to the letter. It was amazing how she'd switched personas all the way through her testimony, today and yesterday. First, the American porn movie star who'd had them all on a string, replaced alternately with the innocent, hard-done-by northern girl who'd been in over her head since the beginning.   
  
When Yvonne walked back in to the lounge, she saw Karen putting cutlery and glasses on the table. As Karen was about to put down the second wineglass, Yvonne suddenly began to take notice of what the woman on the CD was now singing.   
  
"Not much a door can do but open or close, but those things are above doors. Not much legs can do but open or close, but those things are above us whores." Karen's hand had been suspended in midair, but as soon as the song moved in to the chorus, she put the glass down and looked up at Yvonne.   
  
"I see," Said Yvonne in realisation. "The light begins to dawn. You didn't want to put this CD on because you didn't want me to know where you got the line you used in that text message to Ritchie."   
  
"I think that moment of recklessness is going to haunt me for ever," Said Karen darkly.   
  
"I've never pulled with a song lyric before," Said Yvonne, "It's certainly different." As they ate their way through Karen's light, fluffy creation with some salad and chilled white wine, Yvonne wondered how she could make Karen forget about all that Ritchie had said in court on Monday. Karen seemed to be sinking further and further in to depression. She didn't eat more than half of her meal, and was extremely quiet as they washed up. As Yvonne scrubbed at the omelette pan and Karen leaned passed her to put the plates back in the cupboard, Yvonne said quietly,   
  
"Talk to me?" Karen closed the cupboard door and said,   
  
"There's nothing to talk about." Yvonne simply gave her a look that clearly said bollocks. Yvonne put the pan in the drainer and let the water out of the sink. Taking the teatowel from Karen to dry her hands, she simply waited.   
  
"I feel so cheap, and pathetic and, degraded," Said Karen, in a tone of such self-loathing that Yvonne turned Karen to face her. There was a look of such anguish on her face that it made Yvonne instantly want to hold her and take all the pain away.   
  
"Do you really think I'd take a blind bit of notice of Ritchie's idea of recrimination?" Said Yvonne.   
  
"You'd be hard put not too," Replied Karen.   
  
"Do you think I'd still be here if anything he'd said had made the slightest bit of difference to how I feel about you?" Asked Yvonne. Karen evaded the question.   
  
"I wouldn't mind," she said, "But everything he said about me was true."   
  
"So?" Said Yvonne. "It doesn't mean you're the only one who's ever thrown themselves at a bloke. We've all done it at one time or another. Jesus, at least you've never paid for it from the likes of Ajit Kahn and numerous others because you were inside and couldn't get any."   
  
"So, it doesn't put you off me?" Asked Karen, praying it wouldn't.   
  
"No, of course not," Said Yvonne with a smile. She moved forward and put her arms round Karen. "Listen, I'm still here because you're stunning, you're funny, you've got the most erotic voice I ever heard, and because I think I'm falling in love with you." Then, at Karen's slightly wide-eyed expression she said, "But don't tell anyone I said that, or they'll think Yvonne Atkins has gone soft in her old age." Karen smiled. As their lips met, Karen wondered why they'd taken so long to do this. She half wished she'd done something about her burgeoning feelings for Yvonne sooner.   
  
"What would really relax you?" Asked Yvonne softly. Karen found herself leaning against the worktop with Yvonne nibbling at her lower lip.   
  
"A long soak in a bubble bath with you might just be the answer," She finally said, in that sultry, sexy tone that made Yvonne's senses tingle in anticipation.   
  
"Sounds like a good idea," Replied Yvonne, taking Karen's hand and leading her out of the kitchen.   
  
As they lay in the warm, scented water, with the soft sounds of Maggie Riley coming from the lounge, Karen could slowly feel the tension ebbing away. Yvonne was gently easing the stress out of Karen's muscles as Karen lay in her arms.   
  
"So," Karen said as she reached out for her glass of wine. "Sylvia was right when she told me she thought all your solicitors weren't genuine." Yvonne grinned.   
  
"Yeah, it was just her bad luck she picked on the real lawyer instead of the fake one."   
  
"But why do it if there was so much risk?" Yvonne thought about this for a minute. "Apart from the obvious," Put in Karen.   
  
"I think I was bored," Said Yvonne finally. "That's what really drives most cons mad. Not just the total lack of privacy or complete non-existence of control over your own life, but the endless hours to do sod all but think."   
  
"So how did you occupy your time?" Asked Karen, at the same time knowing she probably wouldn't get all the answers.   
  
"Well," Said Yvonne with a little grin. "As governor of G wing, there really are some things you shouldn't know."   
  
"At least tell me about that phone sex thing you had going?" Yvonne looked highly affronted.   
  
"How do you know that was me?" Karen laughed at the look of mock mortification on Yvonne's face.   
  
"Because no way could the Julies have set it up on their own. It would have taken a brain like yours."   
  
"We called ourselves Babes Behind Bars." Karen almost choked on another swig of wine. "Oh, yeah," Said Yvonne, thoroughly enjoying Karen's moment of enlightenment. "Babs advertised us on the net."   
  
"Jesus," Said Karen, "I swear they don't get up to half as much now you're not there."   
  
"The trick is knowing just how far you can go," Said Yvonne looking serious again. "I suppose that was a thing born of practice." She sounded almost melancholic, as if she really did regret a lot of her former life.   
  
"Like you said the other day," Said Karen, trying to put Yvonne at her ease once more, "There isn't much I don't know about you. I have no doubts that there is the odd big thing that I'm not aware of, but right now, I don't need to know them. Probably the most important thing I know about you is that you don't do anything without a good reason." Yvonne was touched by the trust Karen clearly had in her. She just hoped she could live up to it. Karen lifted her head from where it had been resting on Yvonne's shoulder and kissed her. Yvonne could feel the faintest hint of pure arousal igniting deep inside her. She tentatively allowed a finger to trace the curve of Karen's left breast. Karen's reaction was evident in the sudden pinnacle of her nipple.   
  
"You're so beautiful," Murmured Yvonne.   
  
"That's the wine talking," Replied Karen, her voice husky with arousal. Then Karen did something that made Yvonne hold her breath in awe of what she was seeing. Karen was gently caressing her own breast, in a manner so wickedly sinful that Yvonne immediately thought it should be made illegal.   
  
"This is what I was doing, last Wednesday as it happens, that really got me thinking in that way about you."   
  
"Are you serious?" Asked Yvonne, quite unable to take her eyes away from Karen's wandering hand.   
  
"This, and other things you can work out for yourself," Karen added.   
  
"Jesus," Said Yvonne. "Do you have any idea how sexy that is?"   
  
"Maybe I'm trying to find out what turns you on," Said Karen, locking eyes with Yvonne.   
  
"Oh really," Commented Yvonne. "You're pretty successful so far." Karen had previously made no attempt to allow her hands to wander at will over Yvonne's warm, supple body, because on Sunday Yvonne had said that she currently didn't want Karen to touch her in that way. Yvonne was more grateful than she knew how to express at Karen's respect of her caution in this matter. But those slight nerves appeared to have dissipated. She took Karen's hand and led it to her breast. Karen's eyes held the question of are you sure, and Yvonne simply nodded. Ever since she'd seen the glorious picture that was Yvonne's body on Sunday morning, Karen had been wanting to traverse its curves, to find out what delights this body might hold for her. As she gently did to Yvonne what she'd moments earlier been doing to herself, Karen was excited by the whole newness of what she was touching. The thing to really hit home with Yvonne was the way Karen's touch was so gentle yet so sexually charged. No man had ever treated her body with such care, such delicacy.   
  
"Let's go to bed," Murmured Yvonne after a while, thinking that she just might want whatever else Karen had to offer.   
  
They got out of the bath and dried off, all the time either kissing or touching. As they moved in to Karen's bedroom, Yvonne turned them to face the full-length mirror.   
  
"Get an eyeful of that," She said with a smirk. Karen gazed at their reflection.   
  
"You're just too stunning for your own good," Said Karen. When they lay in her large bed, their hands were everywhere. If was as if Karen's sole intention was to commit every rib, every pleasure point, every inch of Yvonne's body to memory. She kissed her way down Yvonne's neck, nibbling at the point where a strong pulse came up to meet her, almost as if Karen were putting her claim, her mark on this beautiful woman. Karen kissed a lingering trail down to Yvonne's right nipple, where she introduced her to the delights of someone who, from her numerous exploits with men, knew how to keep her teeth well out of harm's way. The significance of this didn't go entirely unnoticed by Yvonne.   
  
"I'm not going to ask where you learnt to be so good at that," She said , and Karen could tell by her voice that she was certainly doing something right. But when she traced the curve of Yvonne's hip and mapped gentle circles on her thigh, Yvonne's whole body seemed to retreat. There was barely any physical sign of this, but somehow Karen just knew she'd done something wrong. Karen moved almost completely away from her, just lying next to Yvonne with her right arm cradling her as it had been doing all along.   
  
"Jesus," Said Yvonne in surprise. "You're very perceptive."   
  
"I believe they call it female intuition," Said Karen. Yvonne stayed quiet.   
  
"I'm sorry," Yvonne said miserably.   
  
"Don't be," Said Karen gently. "Maybe you're not as ready for this as you thought you were."   
  
"I feel like a defective bloke," Said Yvonne, clearly furious with herself. "In here," She said, tapping the side of her head, "I really want this. I think my body's just not used to the feminine touch."   
  
"Would you like a massage?" Asked Karen, "It might relax you." A broad smile crept over Yvonne's face.   
  
"I haven't had one of those in years," She said, thinking this would probably do the trick. Karen got out of bed and walked over to her dressing table, returning with a bottle of massage oil.   
  
"Turn over," She said, knowing she was going to enjoy doing this for Yvonne. When Karen opened the bottle and poured some of the oil on to her hand, the seductive, sexy aroma of sandalwood permeated the air. As she leaned over to place the bottle on the bedside cabinet, Yvonne could feel the softness of Karen's breasts briefly making contact with her skin. Karen began to knead the muscles at the base of Yvonne's neck, gradually smoothing the oil out to her shoulders. Yvonne writhed luxuriously as Karen encountered the occasional knots of tense muscle.   
  
"You're a genius at this," Said Yvonne, thinking this had been Karen's best idea this evening.   
  
"Tell me what you like," Said Karen, reaching again for the bottle of massage oil. "If you thought I would do absolutely anything for you, what would it be?" Yvonne laughed.   
  
"Now you're asking," She said, trying to give herself time to formulate an answer.   
  
"It can't be that bad," Said Karen with a grin. As she moved down to the middle of Yvonne's back, she occasionally allowed her hands to drift round to caress the underside of Yvonne's breasts.   
  
"You might not want to do this," Said Yvonne, now that Karen's hands were slowly loosening the muscles at the base of her spine.   
  
"I'll try most things once," Said Karen with a smile.   
  
"Would you try oral?" Asked Yvonne, not sure of the response she would get. Karen thought all her dreams had come true at once.   
  
"I certainly would," She said, her hands progressing to the backs of Yvonne's thighs. By this time, Yvonne was so relaxed that she felt as if all her bones had simultaneously dissolved. She felt like her insides and her outer skin had become one glorious, bubbling cauldron of desire.   
  
When Karen put the top back on the bottle, and Yvonne turned over, they simply gazed at each other. Karen thought that Yvonne really did look good enough to eat. When Karen began kissing her, she realised immediately by the passion Yvonne was putting in to that kiss that she was certainly far more turned on than before. Using the oil that was left on her hand, Karen gently massaged Yvonne's right breast, running her thumb over and around the nipple until Yvonne's breathing began to increase. Heartily wishing there was a way she could simultaneously continue kissing Yvonne, and put her earlier wish in to practice, Karen kissed her way down Yvonne's torso, giving attention to every rib she passed. When she reached the level where hip meets thigh, she had to swap hands in order to continue giving Yvonne's nipples maximum attention. This was something Yvonne clearly liked, and Karen didn't want to stop doing it. She kissed a trail along Yvonne's thigh, at first avoiding her main goal, but returning to it along the other thigh. Karen found to her delight that Yvonne was totally shaved. She traced a forefinger over the silky, soft skin under which Yvonne's clit was currently hiding. Knowing her right hand would definitely be better at this, Karen again swapped hands on Yvonne's cleavage. At the first gentle caress of Karen's finger on her clit, Yvonne groaned in pure ecstasy, abandoning herself over to whatever Karen would do to her. Karen continued gently stroking Yvonne's clit while she kissed her way along her hip bone, eventually replacing her finger with her tongue. Yvonne thought she was in heaven. Like most women, it had been her experience that the vast majority of men won't even contemplate giving a woman what they so readily expected for themselves. Yet here was Karen, experiencing her first time of making love to a woman, and eagerly trying something so new without a care in the world, except for how good she was making it for Yvonne. If Yvonne had earlier only thought she was in love with Karen, she now knew this to be a certainty. Charlie had been good, Yvonne would never deny that, but no-one, except maybe Ajit Kahn and the others she'd paid, had ever cared so entirely about her pleasure. As Karen ran her tongue over and around Yvonne's clit, she decided this was something she could certainly do on a regular basis. She knew she had a lot to learn about what really made Yvonne tick, but she knew it was going to be fun finding out. As her tongue swirled around Yvonne's entrance, Karen was pleasantly surprised. It seemed that the taste of a woman far outweighed what any man could ever come up with. She thought that she could easily never get enough of Yvonne's subtle flavour, but with men she'd usually tried to let them only go so far. She returned her tongue to Yvonne's clit and gently inched two fingers inside her. Yvonne seemed to melt at her touch. Karen gently explored Yvonne's internal walls, looking for Graffenberg's greatest discovery. She knew when she'd found it because Yvonne gasped. Karen teased this spot over and over again, until Yvonne's breath was coming in short, sharp gasps. Realising there was room for it, Karen slipped in a third finger and half withdrew and returned her hand, making sure to graze Yvonne's G spot every time. This, combined with her tongue still moving back and forth over her clit, served to push Yvonne up to the top of her sexual wave. Yvonne's whole body tensed as she hovered on the peak, teeth clamped down on her lip to prevent any sound from escaping. Then, as her orgasm finally came crashing down on her, Yvonne thought she might drown in the flood of feelings that were being turned on like lights on a Christmas tree. Her internal muscles had almost crushed Karen's fingers, and long after Karen had removed her hand, her muscles twitched as if looking for the source of all their dreams.   
  
Yvonne lay, utterly satiated and watched as Karen moved back to lie down beside her. Karen just gazed at her, a soft smile lighting her eyes and turning up the corners of her mouth.   
  
"Wow!" Said Karen, grinning widely. "It must have been good to make you lost for words." Yvonne laughed with that self-satisfied smile that only accompanies the afterglow.   
  
"Do you have any idea how fantastic that was?" She asked Karen, her voice slightly deeper than normal.   
  
"Judging by the way you all but crushed my hand," Said Karen, flexing her fingers, "I'm fairly sure you enjoyed it." She said this with such a straight face that Yvonne couldn't help laughing.   
  
"Talk about the bleedin understatement of the century, you were amazing," She finished softly.   
  
"Good," Said Karen, leaning forward to kiss her. Yvonne could taste a faint hint of herself on Karen's lips and thought that if Karen tasted anything like this, she wouldn't mind giving that a go some day soon.   
  
"You've got a hell of a squeeze," Said Karen with a grin.   
  
"Yeah," Said Yvonne with a little laugh. "Sorry, I forgot to tell you that one." They lay, holding each other in contented silence, until Yvonne shivered, the heat of her orgasm having worn off. Karen pulled the sheet back over them.   
  
"I take it you're staying?" Said Karen, noticing it was getting on for eleven thirty.   
  
"Aside from the fact I've got no reason not to," Said Yvonne, "I don't think I've got the energy to move." Karen laughed huskily.   
  
"It's nice to know I can wear you out," She said with a smile. As Karen watched Yvonne slowly fall asleep, and listened to the occasional car pass in the street, she knew without doubt that this is where she wanted to be, what she wanted her life to be. She'd never dreamt that she would come to feel so much for this woman who, only just before the fire last year, had torn a strip off her for sleeping with her son. But here they were, sleeping in the same bed, after some of the most incredible sex Karen had ever been part of, and gradually beginning something that Karen hoped would give them both the security they so badly needed. 


	46. Part Forty Six

Part Forty Six   
  
Snowball was led back through the gates of Larkhall by a coldly silent Di barker whose wall of cold hatred even she could feel. Her eyes travelled not an inch away from the route her eyes had marked out for herself to her cell, neither looking to left or right.  
  
"Did it go all right in court, man," Denny's cheeky voice piped up with much more of an edge of total loathing behind it."I mean, did they hang you out to dry."  
  
"Aye, Merriman." Al's broad Scottish voice echoed the general feeling."Hanging's too good for you."  
  
"You bitches." Was all that Snowball replied. She wanted to be alone with her own thoughts.  
  
It had galled her that, day after day, she had watched from the sidelines while witness after witness were out to bring her down, first Ritchie's goddam mother, then that evil slag Betts, then that slimy creep Fenner, and then, and then…….that spineless mother's boy Ritchie. She loved him, more than anything else in her own troubled life yet he meekly caved in to that bitch of a barrister. She had watched him that day and saw how weak he was despite all his tough talk about being an Atkins. But then again, she had always known how to wrap him round her little finger. The truth was that she wore the trousers in their relationship.   
  
  
  
And all the time they were getting all the attention and not her. She was just this blond haired woman who might as well be doing a walk on part instead of being centre stage where she belonged. She had always wanted attention ever since she could remember and, being a blond American babe, that gave her that attention. It didn't even matter if they hated her, at least she wasn't overlooked. She would make sure that everyone would remember her name like the repeat of that 'Fame' series sang. She wished she was there instead of in this prison dump, languishing behind bars. That kinda thing never happened to Greta Garbo. She, Snowball Merriman, did not 'vant to be alone', no siree.  
  
In a different setting, George Channing elegantly sipped a glass of dry white wine while Neil Houghton had his back turned to her, sat in an armchair and reading the Daily Telegraph. A tall lampstand casting its limited glow on him and him alone gave him all the illumination that he needed. In a domestic setting, he did not have the juvenile fantasies that his leader Tony Blair had of being a failed rock star, dressing down in jeans and open neck shirt and getting his Fender Stratocaster guitar out of its case and playing some abominable row for the neighbours. No, Neil Houghton was a more serious minded man altogether, believing that any distraction in his private life, detracted from his single minded purpose of being in the driving seat of the most professional Labour Party cabinet there had ever been. He was proud of himself, being in that rarefied, most exclusive club of all time partaking of that most addictive drug of all time, that of the appetite for power. Not that he would himself have thought of it in these terms as that required a capacity for insight into the workings of his own mind that he would sooner leave quietly undisturbed. He merely took it for granted that his way of thinking was what motivated mankind, responsiveness to the rewards of peer approval, of being in the right place at the right time, the knowledge that Gordon and Tony smiled on his ability to deliver good news every time. He knew what that approval was worth as he saw also their looks of disdain at the less adept of his colleagues when they failed to deliver their agenda mapped out for them. The name of the game, as a cabinet minister, was that there was no failure. You only had one chance at the most before you sensed that the political fixers would whisper in Tony's ear and next thing you knew was that there was a Cabinet reshuffle and it was back to the anonymity of the back bench, worse that you were labelled a 'has been' and that was not what he had entered politics for.   
  
That wasn't the entirety of his daily business. There came the time when he had to take himself to his local Party Constituency activists and mouth platitudes to keep them happy, to allay their irrational fears like a father would do to his child. That was what he was there for. Worse still were the two monthly MPs surgeries when he had to take himself to some ageing Victorian draughty social club in some bare room and hear the whinges of some local busybody with too much time on his hands who had some frustrated celebrity fix, even if in opposition. They would take some crumpled paperwork out of their inside pockets and ask, half demanding, half-servile, that he himself would personally ensure that such and such little thing could be put right. He did the verbal equivalent of patronisingly pat them on the head and mouth some vague promise while, all the time, scribble some notes and hand it to the lowest underling in his department and dismiss it from his mind. He would then take his car and drive a hundred miles home and shower all the grubby filth of meeting these bodies off of himself. Of course, whoever heard of an MP actually living in the Constituency that he served. You got placed as MP according to your status. Some new one would be MP on the make got to stand for Epsom. A Cabinet Minister of his importance got the dead safe seat of a Manchester constituency with the added bonus that the airport nearby could jet you to Heathrow in half the time it took by ministerial car or, heaven preserve him, some rattletrap train, even if it was first class.  
  
This is where George came in. she was the perfect consort, with all the aristocratic graces you could wish for which, in these days of New Labour, wasn't going to interfere with his political allegiance. He could square that with his beliefs in the same way that he could square anything he could put his mind to.  
  
George could be counted upon to help smooth the way at social occasions with her perfect style and was a positive asset to the relationship as people are judged, not only themselves, but by the woman on his arm. He felt totally confident that he could handle an intimate night out with Tony and Cherie. She does things so well. The only problem is that Deed irritant that she got hitched to in a moment of madness but then again, everyone has his moment of youthful indiscretion, like the CND march that he went on once. Thank heavens no paparazzi were around then to take photographs of a numberless, nameless member of the Labour party as it was then.  
  
He did have the sense to never tie himself with the Unions. In his youth, they were the untrammelled wreckers of society, out on strike at the drop of the hat, ready to pose for the press and shout their ranting hyperbole at anyone within earshot. Thank god, Margaret Thatcher cut them down to size and soften them up for when we took over.  
  
But now there are the least likely obstructionists around to cause trouble, the radical judiciary. Instead of sleeping their way through the political process and letting the executive gently guide them, a number of them have been infected with that malcontent spirit which in New Labour had been stamped out. Envy of the rich, an irresponsible desire to pull down the wealth creators is what burns their every thought, none more so than this Deed fellow. To make it worse, he is a renegade member of the upper classes. The very way Deed raised his eyebrows, the intonation of his speaking voice, the way he holds a cup and saucer speaks to him of an in-born comfortable privileged life which he seems hellbent in disrupting.  
  
He brooded on the latest thing George is involved with, that fire at some prison. Some nameless criminal had died and some Americanised tart had been responsible who had also stabbed a photographer in Florida. Well, if the woman wants to make herself as an American, let our transatlantic friends have the privilege of putting her up on trial. Besides, their crime was the graver of the two even if the tart did come from Wigan in the first place. It caused a real stink in the press when it came out that some antiquated Victorian prison had let the woman construct a home made bomb, set off an explosion in the confusion of which, she nearly walks out through the front gate on an open day. If this is their idea of running a prison, places like them need a good shake up, wake their ideas up.  
  
Neil Houghton put his paper down and George's voice spoke out of the increasing darkness outside the glow from the standard lamp.  
  
"Neil darling, I thought it best to tell you that the court is likely to find the two defendants in the Larkhall Prison fire guilty of arson, and the death of a prisoner. I can see that they will be found guilty. There isn't much of a case to defend. I can see it coming a mile away." George spoke from out of the blue. She had been mulling over how best to give Neil the bad news before opting for the blunt truth.  
  
"Is it that Deed character's doing?" Neil Houghton said in his coldest, most unpleasant tones. "You were sent in there to win this one for us, for the Government. How will I explain this one to the cabinet? Tony will hold me to blame and, up till now, I've always delivered, even if I have to bang a few heads together and threaten a few civil servants with compulsory transfers to Swansea DVLC and break a few careers. Lean on people enough and you get results. That's how we all work."  
  
"It isn't as easy as that, Neil." George spoke more patiently than was her habit. "I'm a professional barrister, not a Minister able to click his fingers at civil servants to do his bidding."  
  
"With your ex on the bench, I would have thought it would be perfectly easy to get that woman out of the government's hair and on a one way trip to the electric chair in Florida. Instead, I suppose the British taxpayer will have to stump up for her upkeep in a British prison."   
  
"This is exactly why it is difficult, Neil. Do you honestly suppose that John would do me a favour for old time's sake? He'd be more likely to do the opposite to spite us." George was never known for her patience or her diplomacy and a strong urge was taking charge of her to tell this man who didn't comprehend anything outside his narrow world.   
  
"I don't agree with you, George. I don't agree with you at all." Neil shook his head not wanting this sort of unwelcome news. In his Department, he had brought in a Human Resource psychologist who had looked at the way the Department was run and had hit upon the notion that if you changed the ways of expressing ideas, more favourable outcomes would result. At work, nobody came to him with a problem, that smacked of negativity. His underlings raised issues which could be resolved, action plans formulated and the right man would take the issue forward and report back to him. So why was he putting up with this obstreperous woman who kept arguing back at him and disagreeing with him. Than goodness, the civil servants who worked for him never saw him at home with the sort of domestic arguments, which were becoming more frequent, these days.   
  
"The judiciary are independent of the executive or haven't you heard that one, Neil." George said coldly.  
  
"Why, George. We appoint these people." Neil Houghton spoke in that manner that infuriated any person capable of human decency. However, because of the culture of nepotism, servility and a language that shackled free thought and free speech, he had no one around to act as a 'morals control', let alone a 'reality control.' That was the real problem with Government these days.  
  
"It's like the bad old days of the unions which I thought we'd seen the back of with the likes of Deed around. God knows why you ever married him." sneered Neil Houghton.  
  
His animosity towards the unions had been one consistent feature of his political life. It came down the basic fear that they represented an out of control, anarchical threat to the natural order which he was accustomed to of a political party exercising control over the political process for the people's best. That fear of anarchy took concrete and vivid form in the waves of discontent that exploded out of nowhere and wrecked the chance of an electable Labour Government. Characters like Deed were merely trade union rabble rousers, speaking in public school accents and wearing judge's robes. The lack of deference to their political betters was exactly the same.   
  
"Look here, Neil." George said summoning up the last reserves of her patience. "I'm doing my best for the defendants to be found not guilty but I can't work miracles. If they are found guilty, don't you ever say that no one warned you." George ignored Neil Houghton's crack about John. She never passed up the chance to get embroiled in a heated argument with John when she met him but it was another matter for Neil to make insulting remarks. Quite why that was, she could never explain. 


	47. Part Forty Seven

Part Forty Seven   
  
On the Thursday morning, Karen dropped Yvonne off at her house first, and then went on to the court where she'd agreed to meet Jo to go through the evidence they would focus on. Pulling in to the still quite empty car park, she could see Jo stood on the steps smoking. Joining Jo and digging for her own cigarettes, Karen greeted her with,   
  
"Have you recovered from yesterday?" Jo blew a smoke ring towards a passing pigeon.   
  
"Yes, I think so. I'll need to be on the ball this morning, because George will have every conceivable knife just waiting to stick in someone's back, me included."   
  
"Things must get quite awkward with her being John's ex," Karen observed. Jo laughed.   
  
"Life is certainly never dull," She replied. Then, seeing the look of half dread and half resignation on Karen's face, Jo followed her gaze to see Jim Fenner emerge from his car. Jo was all too aware of Fenner's systematic examination of both her and Karen as he approached the steps.   
  
"No Atkins with you this morning acting as body guard?" He said as a form of greeting to Karen.   
  
"If she'd known I was likely to be accosted by you, I'm sure she would have been," Replied Karen, knowing when it was simply safer to play Fenner at his own game. Fenner's eyes wandered over Karen's immaculate form in disgust.   
  
"You really have gone the same way as Helen Stewart, haven't you."   
  
"Fenner, I didn't ask for your presence here this morning, so I would really appreciate it if for once in your life you'd leave me alone." Seeming to realise they had an audience, Fenner turned to Jo.   
  
"At least you think I'm useful for something," He said, giving Jo his most winning yet sleazy smile.   
  
"As a witness you may be, Mr. Fenner," Said Jo conversationally. "What you're like as a human being, I couldn't possibly comment." Knowing he'd been publicly snubbed, Fenner walked in through the doors of the court without a backward glance. Karen grinned.   
  
"He's not used to being cut down to size," She said. Jo replied by asking,   
  
"Who's Helen Stewart?"   
  
"She's someone else who had a run in with Fenner."   
  
"A similar run in to you?"   
  
"Something along those lines," Said Karen regretfully. "I don't know how, but he managed to force her out of the service."   
  
"It sounds like it's about time he was forced to leave the prison service," Observed Jo.   
  
"I have thought about your offer," Said Karen, following Jo's train of thought.   
  
"And?"   
  
"If I thought it had any chance of success, I'd tell all to a jury tomorrow. But it's my word against his, no more, no less."   
  
"Convictions have been achieved on such evidence."   
  
"This trial has raked up enough of my private life for the time being."   
  
"Karen, I'm not trying to pressure you," Said Jo gently.   
  
"I know. But I also know that eventually it's what I've got to do. For one thing, I owe it to Helen to put him behind bars." Wondering just what this last statement had meant, Jo glanced at her watch.   
  
"It's time," She said, her mind not entirely leaving the subject of the gradually emerging case against James Fenner.   
  
When Fenner stood for the second time in a week in the witness box, Yvonne's hackles rose. So much had happened between her and Karen in the last week which seemed to have made her instinct to protect ever stronger. Yvonne had been forcefully reminded of how wonderful last night had been, when she sat down next to Cassie in the public gallery. Cassie took one look at her, draped an arm casually round her shoulders and said softly,   
  
"You look like you had a good night last night." Cursing herself for doing it, Yvonne couldn't help blushing.   
  
"You could say that," She replied.   
  
"I'm happy for you," Said Cassie. Yvonne took her hand and briefly squeezed it.   
  
"That means a lot." Then she looked down at Fenner. "Looks as cool as a cucumber that one, doesn't he."   
  
"He might do now," Observed Cassie. "But he won't know what's hit him once those two get their teeth in," She said, gesturing to where Jo and George were stood by the prosecution and defence benches. The overhead projector was still in its place from yesterday, and Cassie thought Jo and George looked like they were getting ready for a dual. But then, she reflected, that's what the trial had been from the beginning. Two opposing councils fighting for their cause and being overseen by the judge from his throne on high.   
  
"Mr. Fenner," Jo began. "I have recalled you to the stand, because the jury has been presented with a number of discrepancies which they need you to clear up for them. In evidence given by Tracy Pilkinton, better known to you as Snowball Merriman, it was asserted to the court that on your introductory visit to her cell, you informed her that Her Majesty's prison Larkhall was a participant in the interlibrary loan scheme with neighboring libraries, Clapham North for example. Do you confirm or deny this?"   
  
"That's a load of rubbish, Love," Fenner said, giving Jo his most innocent smile.   
  
"Mr. Fenner," Intoned Deed. "You will address both prosecution and defense councils respectfully at all times. This may be either by Miss, Ma'am or by their names, Mrs. Mills and Ms Channing. Do I make myself clear?"   
  
"Yes sir," Replied Fenner, giving John the minimal deference due to him.   
  
"As you appear to be denying this assertion, Mr. Fenner," Continued Jo. "Could you tell the court exactly what was said in connection with Larkhall's use of the interlibrary loan scheme?"   
  
"She was using that phony American twang, and she said, I believe you have the interlibrary loan scheme here. I told her she'd done her research."   
  
"Do you think she had? done her research, that is." George rose hastily to her feet.   
  
"Objection, My Lord, the witness cannot possibly be aware of such a thing."   
  
"Strong as your point is, Ms Channing, Mrs. Mills has asked the witness whether he thinks this was the case, not whether it actually was. Please continue Mrs. Mills, but please make your questions clearer."   
  
"Please answer the question, Mr. Fenner," Jo prompted.   
  
"I think," Said Fenner, putting emphasis on his words, "That Snowball Merriman must have done her research beforehand, or she couldn't possibly have been aware of a detail that is pretty irrelevant when you consider everything else an inmate has to get to grips with on entering prison for the first time." Good point, thought Jo, thinking that even Fenner had the odd redeeming feature.   
  
"so, to make it perfectly clear to the jury, it was definitely the defendent you see before you who introduced the subject of the interlibrary loan scheme."   
  
"yes."   
  
"Now, Mr. Fenner, this is not the only assertion that was made about you which requires some clarification. Snowball Merriman also stated that during this primary visit from you, you touched her in an intimate fashion not expected of the conduct of one of Her Majesty's prison officers."   
  
"You what?" Asked Fenner, and Jo suspected this was how he'd greeted every similar accusation in the past.   
  
"Did you run your hand over her breast?" Asked Jo succinctly, realising that niceties were wasted on someone like Fenner.   
  
"No, I didn't," He replied, sounding indignant.   
  
"Did you not also promise her an easier life if she would have sex with you?"   
  
"You've got me all wrong," Said Fenner, unwittingly saying the very words he'd said to Karen so many times.   
  
"Really," Replied Jo sarcastically. "I think that is for the jury to decide. Now, please would you tell the court about how you came in to the knowledge of the affair between Karen Betts and Ritchie Atkins? I want you to think very carefully before you answer this, and make sure that what you say is the exact truth." Jo laid a certain amount of emphasis on her last three words. Dutifully, Fenner spent a moment or two mulling over what he was about to say.   
  
"I was approached by my governor, Neil Grayling," Fenner began. "He told me Karen Betts had a younger man, but I didn't really think anything of it. She was free and single, her private life was her own business. Then, when I was asking Merriman if she'd heard any more about Atkins escape plan, she said she'd heard that a prison officer might be giving Atkins a helping hand."   
  
"And did you believe her?"   
  
"Bent officers are part of the territory, it happens. Merriman then told me that Karen was having an affair with Ritchie Atkins. She didn't put it as nicely as that, but that was the gist of it."   
  
"Again, did you believe her?"   
  
"No, not at first. He's got to be ten years younger than her for a start. But then she said that Karen had been seen talking to Ritchie Atkins outside the prison. I confronted her about it and she didn't deny it."   
  
"Thank you, Mr. Fenner."   
  
As George rose to her feet, Fenner remembered the humiliating way she'd repelled his invitation a week ago. It seemed bitches in suits were always his problem. Helen Stewart, Karen Betts, Jo Mills and George Channing, they were all bitches in suits and all out to get him.   
  
"Mr. Fenner," George's cultured tones dripped ice.   
  
"I only have one question to put to you, what happened to the gun after you removed it from Karen Betts handbag and she placed it in her desk drawer?" Fenner's senses were suddenly on red alert, and he could feel the rigid posture of suddenly attentive watchers. Jo had been about to take a sip of water, but replaced her glass on the prosecution table in the immediate realisation that George had really hit on something here. The time between the gun having been discovered in Karen's handbag and when it was forcefully rammed in to her back had never been explained or accounted for.   
  
"You must answer the question, Mr. Fenner," Prompted Deed, thinking that George was finally showing what she was made of.   
  
"I don't know," Fenner replied.   
  
"Oh, that's funny," Said George in mock wonderment, "Because by my reckoning, only you and Karen Betts were aware of the gun's location inside her desk. Is that not correct?"   
  
"Yes, but..."   
  
"Yes," Said George firmly, interrupting Fenner in mid protest. "So, whilst I am fairly sure that it wasn't Karen Betts who concealed the gun which enabled a prisoner to take her hostage, I am forced to conclude that you were far more aware of the gun's whereabouts than you would like the court to believe."   
  
"You're putting two and two together and getting fifteen," Shouted Fenner.   
  
"I doubt it, considering that I achieved a grade A Maths A-level," Countered George.   
  
"How do you barristers do it?" Asked Fenner. "You pick any random unexplained idea and work it in to a complete fairy tale."   
  
"I assure you I didn't consult the brothers Grim," Replied George, knowing that further antagonism might just make Fenner spill the truth. Jo laughed and John smiled.   
  
"Actually, Mr. Fenner," Said John, "ms Channing does have a point. What explanation do you give for the apparent disappearance of the gun?" Fenner turned to face the Judge's bench.   
  
"I can't offer one, Sir," He replied.   
  
"Really? For a start, who was responsible for the searching of the prison, was it the police or prison staff?"   
  
"Prison officers, My Lord," Said Fenner, finally remembering John's proper title.   
  
"And was the search carried out in a professional manner?"   
  
"I assume so. Let's face it, none of us wanted to end up on the wrong end of a pistol. There's any amount of nutters in that place who'd have used it."   
  
"quite. In that case, one would assume that every effort would have been made to find the gun."   
  
"Sir, perhaps you are not up to date on prison procedure. These are women, and forgive me for being blunt, but female prisoners have more hiding places than their male counterparts." Remembering the numerous times they'd been searched in line with prison procedure, Yvonne, Barbara, Cassie and Roisin felt an inexplicable urge to sink through the floor.   
  
"You're not seriously telling me," Said John incredulously. "That an inmate would internally conceal a gun? I wouldn't have thought it was possible."   
  
"You'd be surprised, Sir," Said Fenner, almost getting in to his stride. John gestured to the clerk and asked him to pass the gun from the evidence bench. Jo and George exchanged a grimace as they followed John's train of thought. Keeping the gun in it's transparent evidence bag, John picked it up and held it between his two hands. His gaze flickered between the gun in his hands, and the two well-constructed figures of Jo and George. Realising that he was attempting to work out if the internal concealment of a gun was possible, George commented,   
  
"I've heard of penis extensions, but that's just ridiculous." The laughter that came from the women in the public gallery caused John to look up from his musing and so achieve George's wish of halting his sizing up of her and JO. Jo gave George a conspiratorial wink. Perhaps the only people who were experiencing a certain level of discomfort, were Fenner, who had been publicly humiliated, and Sir Ian Rochester and Lawrence James who were sitting in the public gallery, a couple of rows behind Yvonne and co. Returning the gun to the clerk of the court, John asked,   
  
"Do you have any further questions, Ms Channing?"   
  
"Yes, My Lord," Replied George moving forward. She walked to the overhead projector and switched it on. Giving it a minute or two to warm up, the court were again treated to the display of Jo's circle of conspiracy, or as some might have put it, the satirical wheel of fortune.   
  
"Mr. Fenner," George began. "Would you look at this. Do you see your name at the end of the line pointing to ten o'clock?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
"You were not in court yesterday, so I will explain its significance to you. Mrs. Mills was good enough to illustrate to the court the supposed web of conspiracy which enabled my client to carry out her plan. You can see that Snowball Merriman's name is in the center, surrounded by the names of the people whom she is accused of using to perpetrate her crimes. Yours is one of them. Why do you think that is?"   
  
"Because she managed to reel me in like the other poor bastards."   
  
"Quite," Replied George.   
  
"Mr. Fenner, you must moderate your language whilst in this court room." George picked up Jo's pen of the day before. She extended Fenner's line out of the edge of the circle and drew a little tail, transforming the circle in to an upside down Q.   
  
"You see, Mr. Fenner," Said George conversationally. "I would suggest that your involvement in the supposed guilt of my client began before she entered Larkhall, long before you'd even heard of her in fact." On the end of the tail, George wrote the word corruption. "Mr. Fenner, you have told the court that corrupt officers are part of the territory. Are you one of these corrupt officers?"   
  
"No."   
  
"I beg to differ," Replied George. "As a result of your clear dislike of Yvonne Atkins, who was once a prisoner in your care, you have systematically looked for any excuse to punish her or have her investigated, by underhand methods I might add. You were duped by the late Maxine Purvis in to believing that Yvonne Atkins killed Virginia O'kane. You were also persuaded in to believing that Yvonne Atkins was planning an escape attempt and that Karen Betts was supposedly helping her. That doesn't sound much like a straight down the line prison officer, now does it, Mr. Fenner."   
  
"I've already explained all that," Said Fenner, really rattled by this time.   
  
"Your total prejudice of Yvonne Atkins achieved the direct result of allowing my client access to parts of the prison which as a first time inmate she wouldn't usually have been able to get near. You were so desperate for any information that might give you prior knowledge of any plans Yvonne Atkins might have had, that you totally disregarded every sign that something a little out of the ordinary was going on under your very nose." George had reached the stage of realising that she didn't have a hope in hell of getting either Merriman or Atkins acquitted, but she refused to go down without a fight. After a short silence, she said, "No further questions, My Lord."   
  
When Karen again stood on the stand, Jo gave her an encouraging smile.   
  
"Ms Betts, please could you tell the court about Ms Pilkinton's behaviour just prior to her shooting her co-defendent, Ritchie Atkins?"   
  
"I think she was high on adrenalin. She'd clearly been biding her time to exact revenge on me for sleeping with Ritchie. I think she was almost acting one of the roles she'd played in a film at one time. Ritchie was struggling with her because he didn't want her to shoot me. Whether that was out of any residual feeling he had for me or out of a simple dislike of being caught with a dead body on his hands, I don't know. But he definitely thought she was going too far."   
  
"What did he do?"   
  
"He tried getting the gun away from her. She wanted to kill me, but hurting me was just as much fun to her. Giving me a black eye seemed to give her some sort of temporary satisfaction."   
  
"Did she at any time show signs of giving up her weapon?"   
  
"No. She absolutely refused to let go of it. If she'd let him have the gun, he wouldn't have been shot."   
  
"To make this clear for the jury, are you saying that the shooting of Ritchie Atkins was as a direct result of Ms Pilkinton's sheer determination to hold on to the gun?"   
  
"Yes, without a doubt."   
  
"Thank you. The only other thing I wish you to describe to the court, is Ritchie Atkins behaviour towards you after you had returned from two weeks holiday."   
  
"On my first day back at work, he turned up with a rose."   
  
"He came to the prison?"   
  
"yes, he appeared as I was getting out of my car. I'd previously made it perfectly clear that for me, business and pleasure definitely didn't mix. I was quite short with him when he said he'd missed me. I agreed to maybe meet him that evening. He said he'd call me."   
  
"And did he?"   
  
"He sent me a text message saying come any time."   
  
"And did you do as he'd suggested?" Glancing over to the dock, Karen was utterly thankful to see that it wasn't Di Barker sat with Snowball, but the new officer Selina. At least now she wouldn't have to explain to Di why she'd used her son as an excuse not to stay at the hen party.   
  
"Yes, I did."   
  
"And was he pleased to see you?"   
  
"He was surprised, but pleased. Again, I'm not sure now whether the surprise was genuine or not."   
  
"And how was he towards you the next morning?"   
  
"He didn't want me to leave. He tried every trick in the book to make me stay in bed." In the gallery, Yvonne took a breath to say something, but Cassie took her hand and gave it a squeeze. She knew how hard this must be for Yvonne, hearing about the time Karen had spent with Ritchie.   
  
"Just keep remembering who she's with now," murmured Cassie in Yvonne's ear.   
  
"I pointed out to him that I had superiors," Went on Karen, "He didn't think my being late for work mattered. He was also showing signs of not wanting to keep to the level of discretion I wanted. Again, he didn't think it mattered if my colleagues knew I was sleeping with the son of an inmate."   
  
"Do you think he was trying to bring some level of discredit on you with your employer and colleagues?" George stood up.   
  
"Objection, My Lord, the witness cannot possibly know the intentions of the defendent on this matter."   
  
"I'd think by now that I'd have a fairly good idea, wouldn't you?" Countered back Karen.   
  
"I am assuming you're not psychic," Responded George.   
  
"After the way he reeled me in like an adolescent virgin, I'd say it was perfectly obvious what he was up too." Jo was prouder of Karen than she'd ever been of any witness before. She was standing up to George as well as Jo herself usually did. But John had heard quite enough.   
  
"Shut up, both of you," He said, his voice resonating round the court. "Ms Channing, sit down. ms Betts, I will not have witnesses engaging in a verbal brawl with an opposing barrister. Though, I feel it my duty to add that I think you're in the wrong job and that if you should ever decide to join the legal profession, I would be delighted to see you appear before me." Realising she had just been complemented, Karen smiled sheepishly at him. Jo repeated her question.   
  
"It has occurred to me as a possibility," replied Karen. "His turning up at work, trying to persuade me to be late, and then wanting to virtually go public about it do indicate that he wanted to cast doubt on my professional integrity. He was in effect laying the ground for what was to come. I don't know why he initially picked on me. After all, he couldn't possibly have known that I would be on duty for visiting that day and Snowball Merriman wasn't even in the prison. But he soon discovered that I fitted his purpose." This was said with such bitterness that George winced. Then the court went completely silent except for one voice.   
  
"I picked on you because I could tell you were up for a good time," Came the seductive, slightly sleazy tones of Ritchie Atkins. "And you enjoyed every minute of it, didn't you." He said this whilst looking Karen straight in the eye. "You're making out I was the bad one here. but if wanting me to hold you down and fuck the living daylights out of you ain't just a little bit bad, then I don't know what is." Yvonne made a move to rise to her feet and was forcibly held in her seat by Cassie and Barbara who kept their arms tightly round her to stop her from doing something stupid.   
  
"Get him out of here!" Roared John. Karen stood stock still, her hands clenching the rail of the witness box. She felt like she was stood there without a stitch on. Every person in this court, including the most precious woman in her life, could finally see the loathsome, depraved individual she felt she was. Once Ritchie Atkins had been removed, John turned to George.   
  
"any questions, Ms Channing?" George looked at Karen with a contemplative gaze, various pieces of a slowly forming jigsaw falling in to place in her mind.   
  
"No, My Lord," She said, not taking her eyes off Karen until the final piece had slid in to its slot. As the clerk of the court called out, "All rise," George reached behind her for a file buried somewhere deep on the defence bench. She watched Karen walk from the court, and then gestured to Jo who was gathering her papers together. She waved the folder at her. Jo came over to her.   
  
"What's up, George," She said, "It's a bit late for bargaining."   
  
"It's not this case I'm thinking about," Said George opening the file. "When Karen Betts was first on the stand, that imbecile Cantwell brought out a supposed fake rape allegation she'd made against James Fenner."   
  
"I know, your point is?"   
  
"My point is," Said George patiently. "I think someone needs to re-open the case."   
  
"There was nothing fake about that allegation," Said Jo.   
  
"I know," Replied George. "The question is, why wasn't it pursued?"   
  
"A simple matter of a prison governor with too many friends in high places," Said Jo. "But how do you know?"   
  
"Jo, just where have you been living for the last few years?" Asked George in disgust. "The reason why Karen Betts went looking for hard and rough from Ritchie Atkins was, I suspect, because she needed to punish herself for not being strong enough to stop Fenner from doing what he did to her." Jo stared at her, the pieces also slotting in to place.   
  
"Are you an amateur psychologist now, George?" She asked, as a way of covering up her slight amazement.   
  
"We all are to a certain extent," Said George Matter-of-factly. "You know that. I don't usually do criminal work, but I think someone ought to try and persuade her to go ahead with a charge."   
  
"She's already considering an offer I made her last week," Said Jo.   
  
"Well, let's hope she takes you up on it."   
  
"Can I borrow whatever files you've got on Fenner?" Asked Jo.   
  
"Not yet, I don't know what you might pull out of the bag," Said George. "You can have them with pleasure once this shambollic trial's over." Feeling they'd reached an uneasy truce, yet knowing that a real cease fire would take much more co-operation than this, George and Jo left the court room knowing that somehow, a line had been crossed. 


	48. Part Forty Eight

Part Forty Eight   
  
"The Lord Chancellor wishes to see the both of you," the smartly dressed ambitious aide to the head of their Department informed them. They were sharply interrupted when they were chatting and strolling casually along one of the many corridors which stretched far into the distance of the ancient heart of the judiciary.   
  
Sir Ian gulped as the casual intonation held the flavour of years gone by in a prelude to an unwelcome and painful interview in the Headmaster's office where choice invective and a stout cane was painfully ready and waiting. From their own observations in the gallery of the Crown Versus Atkins Pilkinton trial, the case was going very badly for the Lord Chancellor. In other words, the prospects were that these two unwanted and unwelcome criminals were going to end up in Her Majesty's Prison for a long stretch. How much easier would it be if that Pilkinton tart could be sent back to Florida and that she, at least, would be someone else's problem.  
  
Nervously, they opened the stout mahogany door and sat in the low seats across the way from the huge desk, overstuffed with papers and the grey indefinite figure that addressed them from the gloom.  
  
"I need to know what's happening in the Atkins Pilkinton trial. I've written memos to you on it but, quite frankly, I've not had any clear replies. So I thought if we had a chat together I'd get a proper explanation without your usual waffle. So how's the trial going, eh."  
  
"Well, err, the trial is rapidly approaching its conclusion or so I hear." Sir Ian stammered, giving the utterly false impression that his source of information was several stages removed from him.   
  
They wanted to keep quiet the livelier moments of the trial, like the recent morning session where the dignity of the court had been disrupted by female bawdy humour. It was not what his public school upbringing and cloistered life in what was once an all male preserve had accustomed him to. Sir Ian's sister and mother never behaved in the same way as these women.   
  
"What conclusion, guilty or innocent." The voice snapped.  
  
"It's too early to say yet. You know that nothing is cut and dried where a British jury is concerned." Sir Ian replied. Lawrence James as his junior, figured that his best course of non action was to edge his chair discretely backwards and pretend to be invisible. This would avoid him being drawn into the argument.  
  
"So what about this Deed character that's running the trial. How the devil did you ever let him get his hands on this case. And that Jo Mills, another trouble maker. And George Channing, sound enough barrister in her way and her bed mate is Neil Houghton. I've popped into his office, from time to time to give him a bit of advice to pass on to George Channing to use in the trial. The man's fairly young and keen and will have to earn his keep. Despite all this, from what I hear the verdict will be guilty without a doubt. Have you both completely lost the plot "   
  
"You can't interfere with the independence of the judiciary." Sir Ian stammered, stealing one of John Deed's favourite lines.  
  
"Let's put it this way. Would you both like a level transfer career move to, say, the Immigration Department?" the steely threatening tones hung in the air." If I can put a bit of pressure on Neil Houghton, then when it comes to you two………….."  
  
The pair of them froze in horror at the thought. That department was the notorious civil service grave yard of all the dispossessed and unwelcome. It meant poring over dubious process figures of asylum applications offered up by sycophantic underlings desperate to please. In reality , this could not camouflage the real intractable logjam of work which would not go away no matter what new initiatives and restructuring was carried out. Occasionally an interfering busybody of an MP caused his pet interest in one local constituent application to vault the enormous distance from his place in the queue right to the front .Once that political hot potato was dealt with, the queuing system trudged on in the same mood of hopeless apathy as that of bygone Iron Curtain era Russian bread queues. Outside the beleaguered gates, the lunatic Right wing press pilloried the Department on the one hand as lackadaisical and the trouble makers on the left slated the Department on the other as heartless and bureaucratic. In contrast, their present lifestyle was that of comfortable bonhomie, hobnobbing with Old Etonian judges. Even John Deed isn't such a bad fellow , Sir Ian reflected, perhaps we've misjudged him.   
  
They slunk out, with their tails between their legs, fired with a desperate last ditch resolution to persuade, cajole and bully John Deed into doing what is assuredly the Greater Good for us all.   
  
The Lord Chancellor sat back in his chair with a sigh of relief, hoping against hope that his little pep talk would put a bit of backbone into Sir Ian and Lawrence James. He had been made to feel highly uncomfortable , coming out of the Cabinet Room just in front of Neil Houghton , being pinned into a corner by the man with the sharp pointed steel teeth of the Cheshire cat smile and stone cold blue eyes. Both Neil Houghton and him immediately ingratiated themselves to him as he talked at the two of them, briefly in passing. It was only right, therefore, or so the Lord Chancellor rationalised to himself that he should pass on his uncomfortable feelings down the line and bully his underlings, like Sir Ian and Lawrence James.   
  
These powerful people only had to click their fingers for others to do their bidding and live in their own insulated little world, one for whom life is arranged to suit their needs. They are an alien species in the same country as the human population who live by standards of basic decency and sympathetic feelings. But the likes of Karen, Yvonne, Cassie, Roisin, Babs and Denny are at the bottom end of the heap, relatively speaking where nothing ever comes easily and has to be fought for but it is all the more precious if their dreams come true. As for John Deed, he could have joined the aliens but made a conscious life commitment not to do so and that's what they never understood about him.   
  
"A fine help you were with the Lord Chancellor," a very rattled Sir Ian snapped to his assistant Lawrence James who had been unusually quiet.   
  
"I'm sorry, Sir Ian," Lawrence James's reply was more of a croak."Do you really think we are doing the right thing in seeing Deed after this morning's regrettable performance?"   
  
This wasn't Lawrence James best moment in explaining to Sir Ian his concerns . He was at his most comfortable when he was at his most officious, picking up minor errors in procedures committed by some junior clerk working under him. He was all the more jealous of his position as a black man who had climbed to such dizzying heights of power. A major characteristic of him was an almost Victorian sense of propriety which Deed's anarchistic sense of humour constantly affronted as it was disrespectful of his sense of position and an almost bygone era of 'good form.' Lawrence James found particularly offensive that a renegade white public school man with an upper class drawl like Deed should brazenly attack such values.   
  
For this reason, bawdy female humour was his Achilles heel and, to make it worse, he had never encountered this before. If some kindly friend had played him TV excerpts of Jo Brand's choicer moments, he would have been better prepared and the shocked virgin routine really didn't help his overdeveloped sense of his own dignity. His one defensive shield was that the colour of his skin, the cause of so much racial discrimination of so many of his culture, enabled him to blush without anyone noticing it.  
  
"You heard what the Lord Chancellor said. Do you really fancy moving your belongings to the Immigration Department ,that squalid 1960's concrete and glass monstrosity. Think about it." snapped Sir Ian, getting out of breath in his hyperdriven seven league walk down the corridors of power, to grab the first taxi and to propel themselves in the direction of John Deed.   
  
John Deed was mulling over the most recent trial episode and the extraordinary revelations when the habitual knock on the door told him that a space in time of Buddhist contemplation was not to be his lot in life.  
  
"Don't worry, Ian. The door's perfectly safe. It will keep out a horde of marauding Visigoths this time." John heartily reassured Sir Ian and Lawrence James. He had noticed the way that Sir Ian closed the door ever so delicately for fear of offending it.   
  
Sir Ian and Lawrence James sat back recovering their breath after accepting John Deed's wordless invitation to take a seat. They looked as if they had done a ten mile hike, thought John, and that is not typical of them.   
  
Sir Ian gratefully accepted a bone china cup of tea and decided not to lead off straight away with the matter that was most pressing.  
  
"Well, just to be absolutely sure, John, please don't offend that ex wife of yours, there's a good fellow." Sir Ian, replied slightly patronisingly. "Or is it going to be a window next?"  
  
"My wife knows a good builder locally who could do all the repairs you might want, Sir John." Lawrence James added in helpful tones."I could give you his phone number. Very reasonable price."  
  
John Deed's eyebrows were raised in sheer puzzlement. He was psyched up in a second to whatever threats and blandishments that came natural to them but here they are, in an almighty hurry and all they do is talk about building repairs. Was the caretaker of the chambers suddenly going to come in next, in his overalls and hold forth about abstruse points of law? His world was starting to go a bit askew.  
  
"The real reason why we called, John," Sir Ian resumed more abruptly." is because of this damned trial. The burden of proof is on the Crown and the case has become compromised with some witnesses for the crown being the type that I would not buy a second hand car from."  
  
"We are thinking, My Lord, of your best interests." Lawrence James added without a discernable trace of irony.  
  
Now I get it, John Deed thought, they're trying the classic nasty guy, nice guy routine. Nice try but it won't work.   
  
"Which witnesses do you mean, Ian?" John Deed asked promptly. He's trying his usual mix of truth and lies.  
  
"I prefer not to name names. That would be improper. Besides, you are placing far too great a burden in asking them to pick their way through what is an infernally complicated matter. There is no clear straightforward picture of what may, or may not, have happened."  
  
"I don't know, Ian. I was most impressed by Jo's use of the OHP. I am intending to make that the subject of a talk that I have agreed to do and encourage its use.We are always being asked to move with the times, Ian and this is my concession."  
  
"OHP?" the puzzled chorus delay echoed.  
  
"Over Head Projector,Ian." John Deed replied speaking unnaturally slowly and clearly, enunciating every syllable."Much more practical than a lot of barristers waffling on. Cuts to the core of the matter."  
  
"The next thing you'll inflict us with is disco lights next to make the court more modern since you clearly see yourself as a trendy judge." Sir Ian replied sarcastically.   
  
"Good heavens, no, Ian. That would be to confuse thought, rather than clarify it as the OHP, in the right hands, has the potential to do. In the same way, a Stradivarius played by a master of the instrument will move human feelings to pinnacles of spirituality. In the hands of an ignoramus, it produces nothing but a hideous discord."  
  
"Very poetic," sneered Sir Ian, not knowing the hidden joke that John Deed was playing on him. "So I suppose the trial is going the way to suit both you and your girlfriend." Sir Ian's reply was abrupt and aggressive. John could sense that the man was sweating. This isn't Ian trying to be strong and dominant this time but a man being leaned on.  
  
"My concern is, as always, that justice is being served, Ian. You know me of old." John Deed replied softly and gently.  
  
"And, I suppose that this morning's unseemly display with the gun was likely to add to the dignity of the legal system." Sir Ian cut back icily.  
  
"Oh, that," John Deed smiled broadly and then chuckled outright. "The debate was one of the more illuminating I have been involved with from the bench."Tell me, as men of good judgement , between you and me, do you really think it would be possible for women to conceal a gun internally as Mr Fenner suggested."  
  
"It is not for me to say, my lord." Laurence James's verbal three steps back left Sir Ian exposed.  
  
"Is this some tasteless game you are playing with us, Deed." Sir Ian angrily retorted.   
  
"The only point I would make in return is that one of the main witnesses for the prosecution stood in front of the dock, utterly compromised by her loose morals. Who knows what she was really prepared to get up to for the sake of one of the accused in the dock if the truth were known. From all appearances, she has gone from one man to another and someone with a compromised private life means that the performance of her public duties should be seriously questioned. All it takes is enough of a close investigation over her time at Larkhall and before. Mark my words on this. The Home Office is not my department but if I were an official in the Home Office charged with personnel matters, I know one change I would make to the management of Larkhall."   
  
John Deed saw red as the chivalrous side of him leapt to the fore. He would not stand by and allow a woman whom he held in high regard to be slandered by two cheap politicians of easy virtue.   
  
"How dare you make such wild accusations against a woman who knew full well what questions she was going to face in this trial but has done her public duty in testifying when she could have held back if she wanted to. I think you ought to take yourself back to where you came from."  
  
"Touched a sensitive nerve, did it. I mean about morals." Sir Ian rashly hit back.  
  
"If you came before me on the bench, Ian. I would impose the heaviest damages for slander. If you said it in the street, I'd knock your block off." John Deed replied in a quieter tone but with a dangerous look in his eye. The second option seemed very real in that atmosphere of electric tension..  
  
Lawrence James tugged at His Master's sleeve indicating that they should go before John Deed's proven public aptitude for fisticuffs were to be repeated.  
  
"The trial will go on to its conclusion, and justice shall decide. Nothing now will stop this."  
  
Sir Ian and Lawrence James delicately made their way out of the danger zone while the going was good. The sheer physical need for self preservation overrode everything, including what the lord Chancellor would say. Once they had sidled out of the door, they shut it hastily and beat a rapid retreat. 


	49. Part Forty Nine

Part Forty Nine   
  
Karen barely ate a thing at lunchtime and as soon as possible, excused herself and went outside. She'd hardly exchanged a word with Yvonne, mainly because Yvonne could see that Karen didn't want to talk. She sat down on one of the benches that overlooked the fountain in front of the court. The sun was still hot, but Karen could feel a tension in the air, a rising of pressure that heralded a storm. Karen felt numb, empty, as if her soul had been laid bare for all to see. She hadn't been able to look at Yvonne, she didn't want to see the scorn that must be in her eyes. Last night had been so wonderful, Karen had never known anything better. But now that Ritchie had spelled out to anyone who cared to listen just how worthless and pathetic she was, Karen doubted that Yvonne would want anything more to do with her. George walked out of the front doors of the court. She saw Karen sat by herself, looking as if her world was about to end. George wasn't usually the sympathetic type, other people's feelings weren't something she often made time for. But the sheer desolation in Karen's face seemed to draw George towards her. Karen wasn't aware of George sitting down on the other end of the bench and lighting a cigarette.   
  
"You do realise that you're giving Ritchie exactly what he wanted by dwelling on what he said, don't you," Said George after a while. Karen looked up, startled.   
  
"How long have you been sat there?" She asked.   
  
"Only as long as it's taken me to smoke this," Said George, holding up her cigarette which was almost down to her fingertips. Looking in to George's face, Karen didn't see anything that resembled scorn, only kindness, which she suspected was a rare occurrence in this woman's eyes.   
  
"It feels like he's been set on ruining my life from the beginning," Said Karen miserably.   
  
"If it makes you feel any better," Said George, "He did have feelings for you at the start. He wasn't always as calculating as you might think."   
  
"What makes you so sure?" Asked Karen.   
  
"I've talked to him on and off throughout the trial. The pair of them are as guilty as sin, and there's nothing more I can do for either of them now. But most of what happened to you came from her."   
  
"Why are you telling me this?"   
  
"Because I think you need to hear it. If you ask me, Ritchie Atkins has always been weak, always needed someone much stronger to keep him on track. He'd never have kept up the charade with you and used you the way he did if it hadn't been for Snowball nagging him every step of the way. With her behind him, you could never have prevented him from taking advantage of you."   
  
"Why did you take up this case?" Asked Karen, really wanting an answer to this. George took a final drag of her cigarette and flicked the end in to the fountain.   
  
"Sleeping with the secretary of state for trade, occasionally means that cases which are considered to be political dynamite are pushed my way. It was deemed politically expedient to get Merriman off and ship her back to Florida and the electric chair, but I'm fairly sure that this time I won't be able to deliver."   
  
"I think I'd prefer my job any day," Said Karen. "At least prisoners are expected to make use of underhand methods to obtain their goals."   
  
"I'm getting used to the fact that politicians regularly do the same," Said George. "And as I'm defence council and you're a prosecution witness, I shouldn't even be talking to you."   
  
"So why are you?" Asked Karen.   
  
"If John thinks you'd make a good barrister, and coming from him that's high praise indeed, you deserve to be put in to the picture." Karen was slowly getting the impression that George needed to make some reparation, some form of apology for taking on this loathsome pair of individuals who were unquestionably guilty. Standing up and picking up her handbag, George made to leave Karen to her thoughts, but she couldn't go without a final word.   
  
"If Yvonne Atkins has got any sense, she'll take the meaning behind her son's words with a pinch of salt." As Karen watched George walk towards the court building, she called,   
  
"Thank you," And received a backward smile in return.   
  
When they all filed in to the public gallery, Karen sat a couple of seats away from the others, receiving a look from Yvonne that clearly said don't push me away. They watched Jo and George move in to place, in their accustomed positions of as far away from each other as possible. As they rose to watch the stately figure of John enter from the door behind the judge's bench, it hit Karen that this trial was almost over. In a matter of twenty four hours, they might just know what the future held for Ritchie and his tart.   
  
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury," Began Jo. "Over the last two weeks, you've heard from eight witnesses for the crown, who have described their impressions of, their experiences with, and their feelings towards the defendants you see before you. I would like to take this opportunity to remind you of the evidence you have had placed before you, and which you will use to aid you in making your decision as to the defendants' guilt or innocence. First of all, you were treated to the appearance of Yvonne Atkins, Ritchie Atkins' mother. You heard her describe how her son had initiated contact with her after four years separation. Yvonne Atkins elaborated by telling you of the two visits she received from her son, whilst she was serving a sentence in Larkhall prison. Yvonne Atkins not only told you of how her son conned her out of fifty thousand pounds, but of how she unwittingly intercepted a phonecall from him which was meant for his co-defendant, Snowball Merriman. I have submitted the records of Ritchie Atkins mobile, which prove that this phone call took place. You then heard from Karen Betts, a wing governor from HMP Larkhall. She has appeared before this court twice within this trial. She has described her brief liaison with Ritchie Atkins, which should ensure you that she bears no blame for the way in which she was used by the defendant. Ritchie Atkins, used the cover of his sexual relationship with Karen Betts, to smuggle the gun which you see before you, in to her handbag. This gun was then transported, without Karen Betts' knowledge, inside one of Her Majesty's prisons. You have heard from James Fenner how this gun was discovered, and, how it disappeared. Ritchie Atkins managed to bring a certain level of scorn and discredit on Karen Betts from her colleagues. He was able to keep in touch with his co-defendant, by way of the phone in Reverend Mills' office, which Ms Pilkinton used on a regular basis. Ritchie Atkins took a job at Clapham North library, to enable him to conceal first drugs, then explosives within copies of Shakespeare and Anthony Trollope, which were then delivered by way of the interlibrary loan scheme to Larkhall prison. By way of her principle officer, James Fenner, Ms Pilkinton was given undeserved access to the prison library, which provided her with ample opportunity for the construction and concealment of the bomb, which, on June the 15th 2002, was entirely responsible for the death of one inmate, Sharon Wiley. You have heard from both the Reverend Henry Mills and his wife Barbara, how Ms Pilkinton insinuated her way in to Reverend Mills' favour, and of how she pilfered an altar cloth in order to construct a disguise for her attempted escape. You have heard from Alison McKenzy, also an inmate of Larkhall prison, who described how she was at first taken in by Ms Pilkinton, who took advantage of this vulnerable girl's addiction to drugs. Alison McKenzy told you of being asked by Ms Pilkinton to first steal a radio alarm clock from Yvonne Atkins' Cell, and then to assist her in moving the books, which we now know to have contained the explosives, out of the library on the morning of the open day. You have heard from Ajit Khan, who was in Reverend Mills' office with Yvonne Atkins when Ritchie Atkins made his phone call, asking to speak to Snowball Merriman. there is no doubt whatsoever, that Ms Pilkinton, better known to many of the witnesses as Snowball Merrriman, did conspire to commit arson, and is therefore guilty of the manslaughter of the inmate Sharon Wiley. There is also no doubt, not even a reasonable doubt, that her co-defendant, Ritchie Atkins, also conspired to commit arson by sending the explosives to Larkhall prison. He was also without doubt in unlawful possession of the firearm that he smuggled in to Karen Betts' handbag. but now we come to the charge, faced by Ms Pilkinton, of grievous bodily harm. You have heard, during both Karen Betts' appearances on the stand, of how she was taken hostage by Tracy Pilkinton, who forced her at gun point to drive to a rendezvous with Ritchie Atkins. Karen Betts described how exultant Tracy Pilkinton appeared. She said, she was high on adrenaline. Tracy Pilkinton had a lust for power, a need to control the one woman who had continually been the thorn in her side. Not only had Karen Betts left Ms Pilkinton in segregation for over a month, she had foiled her escape attempt. But most of all, Karen Betts had made the all too human error of sleeping with Ms Pilkinton's lover, and had, until the day of the fire, been pursuing a sexual relationship with him. It was at the point of no return that Ritchie Atkins chose to commit the one noble and righteous act of his life. In choosing to save the life of his one time lover, Karen Betts, Ritchie Atkins made it possible for his co-defendant to shoot him in the back, causing him to lose all power in his legs. He fought with Tracy Pilkinton, but she refused to relinquish the gun. Not for anyone was this woman prepared to forego the exhilaration that killing Karen Betts would have given her. Tracy Pilkinton is guilty of grievous bodily harm, purely and solely because she refused to give up her weapon. Her desire to kill the woman she considered her rival, had the direct result of injuring Ritchie Atkins. Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I implore you to listen to what I have said and to take in to account all the evidence and testimony you have heard in this court. Ritchie Atkins and Tracy Pilkinton are without any doubt, guilty of the crimes with which they are charged." 


	50. Part Fifty

Part Fifty   
  
After parting company with Karen, George headed to the ladies' and stared at her face in the mirror in a way that she never had before. Something in her stopped her from rushing instinctively into arranging her face and appearance ready for the afternoon's performance in the way that she normally did but, instead, she studied thoughtfully the face that stared back at her in equal measure. After a touch of eye shadow, powder and lipstick, and adjustment of her favourite powerdressing suit she would normally pick up her papers and click into action the way she normally did. This time, she hesitated, and what did she see? Naturally, the aristocratic, perfectly poised expression on her face for the woman who always handled things perfectly. So why now, did she feel tired and not wanting to rush out towards what duty demanded of her, and that handsome fee that she normally felt was something she could easily reach out and grasp, just like everything else that came her way, just like a Cabinet Minister who, from her privileged background, was what she was expected to want. Only this time, something didn't quite fit. In fact nothing quite fitted in her life right now.  
  
"I'm counting on you, George, to deliver on this one. You know what's at stake here." Neil had said to her talking through his newspaper.  
  
"Oh, am I one of your Under Secretaries that you give your orders to, darling." George retorted, her voice edged with sarcasm, as the court papers on her lap slithered in front of her."I've told you what I'm up against."  
  
Neil Houghton never answered back which infuriated George more. At least John would have given her the satisfaction of a no holds barred emotional stand up row and battled it out with her. Instead, she got moody sulking from the other side of the paper. The man was cold.  
  
The lipstickholder between her fingers remained suspended in space just as she was by this unaccustomed introspective mood. She'd had enough of this case, especially after crossing swords with and meeting Karen as a human being. As she could not switch on her dispassionate forensic skills with words and her facility with the law and really convince herself, how could she convince others? What did she really want to do with her life, another of their parties where she would be the perfect hostess? For who and for what was she performing?   
  
The attractive face before George's eyes dissolved into an out of focus nothingness which told her nothing and explained nothing. That gave her a moment of nameless fear that the hardness of her personality had protected herself against.  
  
Presently, the mentally ticking clock in her head brought her world back into focus and she applied the last contoured lipstick. She was ready to do her duty not out of conviction but to uphold her self respect as a barrister, no more.  
  
Unknown to her, Jo Mills had been an unseen shape in the doorway, temporarily frozen in position by a George that neither she nor George had seen before. Out of respect, she stayed silent and slipped off to another place where she could fix her own makeup. Something told Jo that she had been privy to a backstage glimpse of George behind the theatrical curtains that only the world knew and saw.  
  
Karen, Yvonne, Babs, Cassie, Lauren and Roisin filed into position in their accustomed places in the gallery. It seemed to all of them that the dry texture of the air would be forever trapped in the pores of their skin and that day after day sitting on the hard benches would necessitate a week's stay in a health club, being totally pampered. An alternative of the rest of the summer lazing by Yvonne's poolside, seemed an equally lotus eating alternative. Sipping a glass of chilled white wine while the fierce sun circle through its orbit through the intense blue summer sky was a very attractive way of living which Babs had not been initiated into. It was the sheer mental and emotional focus of day after day which was the most draining, never letting them ease up from the up and down progress of the trial that took it out of them most. Karen most of all felt under pressure and she stared straight ahead into the courtroom, avoiding Yvonne's eye. Cassie, Roisin and Babs looked on in concern as it was all for one between them right now.   
  
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury." George began with a touch of unaccustomed nervousness, not looking up to begin with."The task of the defence starts from refuting the charge that Miss Pilkinton, assisted by Mr Atkins, conspired to commit arson and thereby cause the death of Sharon Wiley. One key point I would like to draw out from testimony given is that assistance that has taken place in the trial has come from a variety of quarters. There has been ample evidence that Mr Fenner," and here George's sarcastic tongue curled her way round the name," has a reputation of being very helpful indeed to female prisoners who are his favourites in his charge and that he has a record of sexual relationships with them. The two go together in the same way as does is violent antipathy to Mrs Atkins.. He has assuredly had his own motives in offering Ms Pilkinton the job in the library and Ms Pilkinton clearly did not extort that privilege from Mr Fenner under duress. It was more the skimpiness of Ms Pilkinton's dress which was the deciding factor which any reasonable member of the jury seeing Mr Fenner's performance and my client's appearance must conclude. Miss Betts was simply faced with a fait accompli which she felt compelled to accept. Mr Fenner was notoriously evasive as to who made the decision to grant her the job. So much of what was said and done around Ms Pilkinton took place behind the closed door of a prison cell and the one other person present was this same Mr Fenner, the shakiest witness of all the eight witnesses put forward by the prosecution. Yet at the same time, he had more direct and prolonged contact with Ms Pilkinton than did any other witness "  
  
The gallery watched George's performance with mixed feelings. It was a curious fortune that placed that bastard Fenner in the same camp of prosecution witnesses to help ensure the conviction of that bitch Merriman. They could see in the sidelines in the dock masquerading at her most innocent, especially for the jury. Yvonne asked herself which of the two of them were more evil and psychopathic, Fenner, the serial abuser of woman, rapist, liar,the maggot of corruption in the very fabric of Larkhall or Merriman, the cold hearted bitch with a heart of stone who made her attempt to escape not caring if flames were burning through the library ,threatening the lives of brave women who were shut up like rats in a trap. The irony was that Fenner had to be believed for once in their lives but Karen and Yvonne's rage at his behaviour at the start of the trial was not forgotten.  
  
"Of the other witnesses," George carried on," Mr Grayling can be exonerated of the charge of assisting the accused as he seems to have done nothing and said nothing in the running of Larkhall and so his evidence can be discounted."  
  
Sir Ian and Lawrence James scowled to see one of their useful contacts in the outside world being lambasted by Deed's ex-wife while Karen grinned tentatively at George's gibe at Grayling's expense but she felt apprehensive for the moment when George's scathing rhetoric may be trained in her direction.  
  
"Miss McKenzy gave rather muddled testimony as to how, in her inexpert opinion, the library display was being set out, the morning before the explosion, not to say a certain amount of choice invective. The rest of her evidence is based on the rather shaky link between a radio that belonged to Mrs Atkins and the mere fragments found in the devastated area of the explosion.   
  
"Likewise, Mrs Atkins, who had made two failed escape attempts herself, assisted with £50,000 delivered to Mr Atkins and the motives for this, you, the jury must decide.  
  
Miss Betts, admirable though she may be as a possible future barrister in this court, has played a somewhat ambiguous role in the affair. The jury will have to decide by what process of magic the gun , suddenly appeared in her handbag, then magically disappeared an hour or so later and then suddenly appeared in Ms Pilkinton's hand on the day that Mr Atkins was shot, if indeed it was the same gun. It is only her evidence and the that of Mr Fenner that the gun existed in the first place at that point in time. The question as to whether Mr Atkins was attracted to Miss Betts or was it the other way round, also place Miss Betts along with the gun, as someone who assisted the events of the trial to take place, whether knowingly or unknowingly."  
  
The gallery watched George's final performance with a fascinated attention. At the start, she verbally skewered Fenner's whole credibility with an expansive relish and tried to engage the key players with eye contact. When she turned her attention to the rest of the witnesses, her eyes periodically turned to the floor and her delivery was flatter, more formal as if she were performing out of duty, not pleasure. Karen watched George's eyes drop at the very point where her past relationship with Fenner was waiting to be emphasised only a curious smile played on George's lips and for the first time, she looked Karen directly in the eye, and passed on to her finale.   
  
"Lastly, I must emphasise that it is not part of the duties of the defence to establish who set off the bomb in Larkhall that, unhappily, killed a female prisoner and nearly burnt to death several more." At this point, George paused, not for dramatic emphasis but, that George, for the first time reflected on this fact for herself. "The responsibility of the defence is to establish that there is simply insufficient evidence that Ms Pilkinton ,with or without Mr Atkins assistance, did so. There is no evidence from information that might have been obtained about Ms Pilkinton that she possessed such knowledge. If there were such evidence, it would have been produced. I must emphasise that absolutely no evidence has been produced that a sophisticated time delay bomb, could have been constructed in secret with the limited facilities of Larkhall.You may be sure that, however negligent the authorities were at Larkhall in locating a bulky object such as a gun, they cannot conceivably had run bomb making classes for the inmates."  
  
At this point,George returned to her best theatrically sarcastic style that drew a grin from Jo Mills and a slight smile from John Deed.   
  
"On this basis, the matter of guilt of Ms Pilkinton of conspiring to commit arson with or without Mr Atkins assistance cannot be shown by the burden of proof, beyond all reasonable doubt. By extension, the charge of manslaughter of Sharon Wiley in the fire also falls by the wayside. The final charge of Ms Pilkinton of committing grievous bodily harm I urge on you to have been merely the result of an accident as, if nothing else, you have to accept the evidence of all witnesses, defence or prosecution, that Ms Pilkinton truly loved Mr Atkins. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, neither of my clients are guilty as charged."  
  
George was conscious of a strong taste of bile in her mouth which she thought was some stomach reaction. She drank from the glass of water at her side to get rid of the taste and sat down. There was no bouquet of flowers for this performance but for the first time in her life, something stirred in her that what she ought to do or say might be different to what she actually did and said.   
  
John Deed, of course, had battled with this conundrum for many years and Jo Mills was his pupil in this respect. He noticed that, rather than accept the plaudits of the crows, in her victory of playing a winning hand, she sat down immediately. No fuss no nonsense, this was a totally un George approach, utterly different from the fireworks of the first week. Despite all his sympathies, John felt respect and some admiration for George for the first time for ages in the way she played what was clearly a losing hand with unusual restraint. Paradoxically, she was at her most convincing when she appeared to try the least.   
  
"I must thank both councils for the prosecution and for the defence for the professionalism with which they have focussed on the key points in the case. Court is adjourned."  
  
George hurried out of the court. She was out of here. Karen felt the same. Despite the delicacy of the way that George had treated her, Karen was her own worst critic and she felt guilty as she had charged herself. 


	51. Part Fifty One

Part Fifty One   
  
As everyone filed out of court, Karen and George felt a similar desire to go home and simply hide from the rest of the world. For George this was impossible because she lived with Neil Houghton, and he would be wanting an update on how the trial was going, and a further assurance that Merriman and Atkins would be found not guilty. George dreaded going home. She didn't want the kind of interrogation she'd been receiving from Neil on a daily basis since she'd taken over from Brian Cantwell. She just didn't have the energy for it. She had half a mind to drive over to the university and persuade her daughter, Charlie, to come for a drink with her. It'd been a while since they'd done that, and George thought it was long overdue. This time when she fulfilled her habit of lighting a cigarette on the steps of the court, her body seemed to sag as she leaned against the wall. She was exhausted, mentally or physically she wasn't sure. She heartily regretted ever having agreed to take on this case. But then, when did she ever have a choice when it came to political dynamite like this one. It was a shock to her to realise that when Neil wanted something done, he niggled, harrassed and cajoled until he got exactly what he wanted. He didn't seem to care what she knew his efforts were gradually doing to her reputation as a barrister, he just said here's a case, I either want them off or convicted and she usually acquiesced. She usually managed to put up some sort of a fight, but he always broke through her defences in the end.   
  
As Karen, Yvonne and the rest of them came out of the front doors, George was struck by the level of communal support and friendship that seemed to surround the six of them. Four of them had been inmates in Larkhall prison, one was a daughter of one of the four ex-cons, the sixth their former wing governor, and George had been aware of their presence in the public gallery throughout the trial. But something was a bit different today. Karen walked a little apart from them, looking almost lost. Karen's eyes met George's as she passed, in brief acknowledgement of their earlier conversation. Karen walked to her car, knowing she should talk to Yvonne, but not entirely sure what to say. She rummaged in her handbag looking for her car keys. Yvonne approached her quietly.   
  
"Are you still hiding from me?" She asked gently. Karen looked up, finally meeting Yvonne's eyes for the first time since Ritchie had spoken out in court this morning.   
  
"I don't know what to say," Replied Karen.   
  
"You don't have to say anything."   
  
"Yvonne, last night was the happiest I think I've felt in a long time."   
  
"I know," Said Yvonne, trying to see where Karen's thoughts were headed. "It was for me too."   
  
"I didn't expect to feel the way I do about you," Said Karen, finally letting out the thoughts that had followed her round all day. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I don't want to lose you just because I couldn't keep my legs closed once too often."   
  
"Let's get one thing straight," Said Yvonne, her voice gentle but firm. "I hate hearing you talk about yourself like that, so please don't do it. I've known you slept with Ritchie for quite a long time now. I might not like it, but there's nothing you or I can do about that. It happened. What's more important, is that I know why it happened."   
  
"Do you?" Asked Karen in a small voice, tears clouding her vision.   
  
"It's obvious," Said Yvonne softly. "You did whatever you did with Ritchie to prove you still could, to prove that Fenner hadn't totally ruined something you used to enjoy. There isn't anything wrong in that."   
  
George was watching Karen and Yvonne from where she still stood, smoking on the top step of the court. She observed that the other four women left discretely, giving the two women some much needed space. She was musing on the whole idea of an ex-con and her jailer and whether they would make a good couple or not, when John and Jo appeared, clearly arguing.   
  
"Recalling Fenner and Karen to the stand was a complete and utter waste of time," John was insisting.   
  
"John, you can't say that," Jo said, clearly getting in to her stride.   
  
"Much as I hate to admit it, Fenner gave vital evidence that the jury needed to hear."   
  
"Rubbish," Replied John. "As a prosecution witness he was a disaster from the word go."   
  
"All's well in the nest, I see," Commented George, receiving a monumental glare from both of them.   
  
"You have to agree with me, George," John persisted.   
  
"Actually," Said George, flicking away her cigarette end. "I don't. James Fenner might be one of the most corrupt men I've had the displeasure of meeting, but the evidence he gave certainly didn't do the prosecution any harm. I wish I hadn't insisted on Karen Betts being recalled though." John looked at George closely.   
  
"You look tired," He said. "Are you taking care of yourself?"   
  
"Does he ever do the old mother hen routine on you?" George asked Jo who smiled.   
  
"Oh, regularly," She said.   
  
"Well, are you?" John persisted.   
  
"As much as I ever did," George replied.   
  
"That doesn't exactly fill me with boundless optimism," Commented John.   
  
"I'm sorry," Said Karen.   
  
"You've got nothing to be sorry for," Replied Yvonne, putting her arms round Karen. It'd been less than twenty four hours since they'd been so close, but it felt like a year.   
  
"Don't push me away again," Said Yvonne, more relieved than she cared to admit that Karen was talking to her again.   
  
"I thought I might entice our daughter out of the university library and see if she feels like a drink," Said George.   
  
"She spends too much time in that place for the summer holidays," Replied John.   
  
"I bet you were exactly the same," Said Jo.   
  
"At least I didn't spend my time rescuing defenceless animals and landing them on my father at a moment's notice."   
  
"Jo," Said George looking over at Karen and Yvonne, "I think you're about to win your bet."   
  
As Yvonne kissed her, Karen knew this felt like coming home. Every hope she had for her own future rested in this woman who had been the catalyst which made her take that step of falling in love with a woman. They stood between the cars, arms tightly round the other, gently kissing away some of the hurt.   
  
"Oh, to finally prove you wrong," Said Jo, the glee evident in her voice. John just stood and stared. When he'd spoken to Karen Betts over a week ago, he could have sworn she was as straight as the ruler that lived irrevocably on Coope's desk. Yet here she was, kissing and being kissed by another woman, by Yvonne Atkins.   
  
"The world's going mad," He said.   
  
"John darling, it's rude to stare," Said George, sounding like a stern parent when he still couldn't take his eyes off them. Jo laughed.   
  
"Don't mind him, George," She said. "He's just encountered his first sexual anomaly."   
  
"Women never cease to amaze me," said John, finally dragging his gaze away from Karen and Yvonne.   
  
"Oh, that's good to know," Said Jo with a smile.   
  
"Why would two clearly normal women suddenly decide that men aren't good enough any more?"   
  
"Don't knock it till you've tried it, darling. Isn't that what you always told me?" If John had been in the habit of blushing, he would have been as red as a beetroot at this remark from a woman whom he'd taught many things. But John Deed didn't blush.   
  
"So, what does he have to do now that he's lost?" Asked George, clearly hoping it was something truly awful.   
  
"He is going to cook me a three course meal of my choice," Said Jo.   
  
"Not a bad bargain," Said George, impressed.   
  
"Couldn't I just take you out for a meal instead?" Asked John, looking slightly uncomfortable.   
  
"No way," Protested Jo. "You agreed to the bet so now you have to stick to it."   
  
"I doubt he's ever lost a bet in his life," Said George.   
  
"I don't usually make the habit of betting on lost causes," Replied John.   
  
"You were so certain," Said Jo, not able to resist the urge to gloat.   
  
"Just tell me one thing," John said, ignoring her taunt. "Tell me that neither of you two are about to shatter my illusions and do the same thing." George grinned wickedly.   
  
"That'd give you a shock, wouldn't it," She said, wondering just what his reaction would be if she did. John put an arm round both of them.   
  
"Promise me," He cajoled. "Just to save my sanity."   
  
"Oh, I don't know," Jo said, giving George a wink. "It might be fun."   
  
"You really are an old dinosaur," Said George affectionately.   
  
"You two will be the death of me," Replied John.   
  
"I promise," Said Jo, looking him straight in the eye. George also gave him her word, though Jo was alert enough to note the fact that George didn't entirely meet his eyes.   
  
"Thank God for that," He said, "The world really would be going mad if either of you strayed off course."   
  
"Bloody cheek," Said George, moving out of his hold. "You're a fine one to talk about straying."   
  
"Okay, okay," He said, holding his hands up. "I know I'm not perfect."   
  
"Far from it," Quipped Jo, heartily glad that Karen Betts wasn't available. She was just John's type, blonde, blue-eyed, and with a very well constructed figure. As she thought of Karen, her eyes drifted over to see them both getting in to Karen's car and driving away.   
  
"I think we were being watched," Said Yvonne as they drove out of the carpark.   
  
"We were," Replied Karen, waiting for the lights to change. "I've a feeling they had a bet on us."   
  
"You what?"   
  
"I think Jo had a bet with the judge that we weren't as straight as we looked."   
  
"Bet he got the shock of his life," Said Yvonne beginning to laugh. What they didn't know, was that Jo had wondered about the extent of their friendship even before they had themselves.   
  
"The things the judiciary concern themselves with," Said Yvonne. "You'd think they'd have better things to do."   
  
"It might all be over by this time tomorrow," Said Karen quietly.   
  
"Yeah, I know. Let's hope justice prevails for once, and that Merriman gets what's coming to her." 


	52. Part Fifty Two

Part Fifty Two   
  
The heat from the fire could be felt in Karen's face and the smoke stung her eyes and she fought for self control in the chaos and confusion. She turned away from the sight and tears washed some of the particles from her eyes. Even now, she could only partly accept the evidence of her senses that the day to day Larkhall was wrenched out of her experience and she was catapaulted into a dream like environment of something terrifying and unknown which she wished she could wake up from.……….   
  
She looked down outside a window at the fire engine in the yard, hosepipes snaking their way from the hydrant that the firemen had found in the nick of time. In an inspired fury of activity, the hosepipes had shot a solid stream of water through the grills in the nick of time. Clouds of smoke were still billowing out the window where five of them had been shut up though the walls and ceiling were now dripping with water.   
  
Karen stood dazedly trying to hold onto her professional self in giving out the necessary orders on automatic pilot. The ambulancemen had crashed their way through the wreckage of the library corridor and Karen could see the smoke blackened figures of the 2 Julies, Babs, Buki, Al and Denny as they were pulled out on stretchers, one, two, three four and five, Buki being the most seriously burnt.  
  
She shivered with self-reproach to think that Larkhall prison had the firehose which had stood from time immemorial in the landing and no one had thought how far the hose would stretch. Typical old time Larkhall that Grayling's thin veneer of managementspeak had done sod all to check. No one even thought of it as being a problem as no one had started looking, noone had had that imagination. Including herself, as she had a stab of self reproach. Twenty feet too bloody short.   
  
And, in the most charred part of the blaze, the side door, burnt to a cinder that had powdered into dust when the firemen's axe had tapped it, was Shaz Wiley lying on her face and her clothes badly singed. Karen had had to hold onto her stomach when she saw it herself and when she had told Denny the news, Denny had burst into tears and sobbing had clung on to her. Karen could remember stroking the cheek of the woman who clung to her and whispering "shh" "shh" into the top of her mop of frizzy hair. It seemed the natural thing for her to do with her long training as a nurse..   
  
Karen couldn't remember what happened next, where Denny went too next but she remembered feeling that she was being well taken care of so she was free to look further at the wreckage. The metal framework of the library racks leant over into the corridor, warped and twisted by the heat while the library books were turned into a heap of ashes. Ugly jagged holes punctured the library wall from the impact of the first blast from the explosion. This was like something like out of a war film as she had watched occasionally on the telly in a moment of boredom.  
  
Once again, Karen felt the heat and the smoke but this cannot be as everything was under control, wasn't it. This wasn't going to go away as easily as the workmen could repair the place, stripping out all the damaged area and tacking new panelling into place. All it takes is that and fresh white paint slapped on the walls and have the place as good as new. She could remember later on her tour of the library wing later on as the proud workmen showed her round the clean fresh area, all sharp clean right angles still smelling of gloss paint on the skirting boards. It's a pity that burns and nightmares take longer to heal. She had been a nurse so she should know.  
  
"How are you feeling, Julie" Karen asked, smiling kindly at the woman in the hospital bed.   
  
"Like shit, Miss Betts." Julie Saunders replied, smiling weakly at her. "Hope you've caught whoever torched the place. We was thinking we'd better get fitted for some wings, if 'eed have us, when the fire brigade rescued us."  
  
"Rescued us," the inevitable delayed echo came from Julie Johnson."Still, you'd better watch Babs over there." Julie S pointed to a sleeping shape turned away from them on her side, huddled under bedclothes. "We was calling out to her earlier, like but she couldn't hear us. When we was in the fire, there was blood coming out of her ear."  
  
A tear came to Karen's eye, easily wiped away when she reflected on the way they had brushed aside their own sufferings in place of someone worse off than them. A real smile of appreciation formed itself easily on Karen's face of the unselfconscious down to earth normal women .They succeeded in rooting her feet to the ground when she needed it and even their singed hair and surface slight burns weren't the visible reproaches she might have feared from them.  
  
…….."Yes, Julies, I'll do everything in my power to get to the bottom of this one , how in hell this infernal bomb, or whatever it was, exploded…..Have no fear on this one."  
  
The nurse came up and explained that they were weak and needed plenty of rest and Karen nodded agreement with their professional opinion as the Julies smiled and closed their eyes. She remembered that first resolve and what happened since………..  
  
Karen turned to walk out of the ward but her normally smooth fitting tailored suit seemed to ride awkwardly on her and seemed to get twisted on her. She walked out through the double doors which swung back shut and went into the ladies to adjust her uniform…  
  
Suddenly, through the door of the cubicle , Fenner's dark form looked, sneering with a mixture of contempt and anger.  
  
"Don't you dare let on and tell tales out of school, Karen Betts, or I'll have you. Stewart's gone, Dockley's gone, Waddle's gone. I got rid of them all one way or another. Looks like your new boyfriend, Atkins's son is next for the chop. I wouldn't like to think what nasty end will happen to him, sooner or later. Nothing I've done will ever see the light of day but it'll be nicely covered up, just where it belongs. You know what I mean…….."  
  
Karen couldn't make head nor tail of this. What did she have to do with Ritchie Atkins anymore ? She twisted away sideways in a frantic effort to escape him and…..she felt a hard lump of metal and the cold evil voice of Snowball and the peculiar personal viciousness with which she said it, conveying every willingness to use the weapon at the first chance.  
  
"Remember I'm an actress. If you don't play this straight, you'll get it."   
  
"Oh yes, Snowball. Like Shaz got it and half of G Wing burnt in the fire that your bomb started but I suppose you didn't mean that to happen." Karen replied sarcastically.  
  
She still felt that wave of real fear sweep over her at the thought that perhaps she was pushing this cow too far when she saw the expression of pure hate on Snowball's face and from the crazy way she's pointing that gun at me.   
  
Jesus, why has she got it in for me so much when Yvonne is her main enemy on the wing. Those scratch marks on the side of her face are hardly marks of friendship.  
  
"You can turn back to Larkhall anytime, Snowball, "Karen urged "You'll just pile more years on your sentence if you don't. You don't want to end up in the dock again on more charges."  
  
"Actually, I do have a good reason to waste a bullet on you, don't I." Snowball's mouth curled with vicious anger." You didn't stop me getting free last time. But don't think you're that important. You're just Ritchie's old shag."  
  
"I'll finish you, you dried up old slag. Leaving me for your new boyfriend, that gangster's moll's son." Fenner's disembodied voice came from behind her in the rear passenger seat. She glanced in the rear view mirror but couldn't see him. But these mirrors had their blind spot and that bastard must really be there.  
  
I can't believe these two. Who are they talking to, Karen Betts? They've got some weird idea that I'm desperately in love with Ritchie and I'm going to shag him just to spite them. Both these two are totally evil but now they're deranged and absurd. I'm the only person making sense around here. They don't know me.  
  
The car sped onto a rough track where she was bundled into the boot of Ritchie's car.   
  
She was wedged tight in total blackness with hardly any sensation except the bumping sounds as the car sped along. She felt a peculiar sensation of being pulled sideways as the car drove. Thank God Fenner's disappeared. Hope him and Snowball keep each other company. They deserve each other. Karen was now just pissed off and irritated and bracing herself with her knees and hands to stop being thrown around in the car. A large assorted metal lump which she supposed to be car tools was digging painfully into her back.   
  
"You can't get away from me, Karen." A loathed voice suddenly spoke into her ear."No matter where you go, I'll always find you." She could feel his breath on her cheek though strangely, she couldn't feel any part of him touching her in such a confined space..  
  
"That's just where you're wrong, Fenner." Karen took fire. She brought her knee sharply forward aiming in the direction of where it hurt most.  
  
Fenner let out an agonised yell as her knee contacted something solid and he faded away into nothingness. Karen smiled with grim satisfaction that, for once in her recent experience, she was making sense of her environment and that she was able to change it. Something right was happening in her life. Anything you can do, Mark Waddle, I can do just as well, and in a much more difficult situation. That's the answer, she thought to herself with satisfaction, deal with your enemies one by one. It's a pity that that deranged cow wouldn't stop the bloody car so I could deal with her.   
  
Suddenly the car gathered speed by the sensations she was experiencing. She could detect by a screech of tyres as the car cut a corner too tight. Oh shit, car chase film never did impress me. And I'm in the wrong bloody place anyway . Karen groaned as the car hit a bump in a road that was clearly some rough track and not some smooth dual carriageway. Now she was thrown all over the place and she had to exert all her strength to avoid being injured. The car tools were working around in the boot but by bracing her back against it with all her strength, it stopped them becoming a dangerous missile to be flung against her. She couldn't see a thing as her hair was falling all over her eyes. She must look a right sight, hair all tangled and her makeup all messed up. .  
  
Suddenly the car gave an almighty swerve to the left that nearly threw her into the opposite corner of the boot. Every muscle in her body fought back but , just when she was about to give in to the enormous pressure, the car suddenly straightened up , slowed down and she sensed the feel of smooth tarmac from the movement of the car. Karen drew a huge sigh of relief that at least that danger had passed.   
  
The car gradually slowed down and she could feel the brakes grind the car to a halt. Suddenly, an enormous rectangle of sky and cloud opened up in front of her and Snowball's scowling face leaning into the space.  
  
"OK, out, bitch" Snowball sneered, manhandling Karen and knocking her to the ground. Karen lay full length on the ground and shouted 'Jesus' at her and looked down the length of Snowball's revolver pointing straight at her. Even though part of her was frozen with fear, the part most in control was damned if she was going to let Snowball have that satisfaction of sensing that fear. That cow gets off on that sort of thing.  
  
"OK Merriman, freeze. I've got you covered" A loud, very familiar voice leapt out of nowhere, no voice that was more welcome or more precious. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the unmistakable slim hawk like silhouette of Yvonne Atkins. But something was strange. Instead of her familiar leathers. Yvonne was wearing jeans, shirt and a brown leather waistcoat. A Stetson hat was perched on her head, incongruously and, round her waist, a gunbelt. She was covering Snowball with a regulation Colt 45   
  
"Mum, don't shoot." Ritchie called out in fear, torn between his mother and girlfriend and indecisive as usual in a moral dilemma.  
  
Snowball's scowling face turned to her hated rival and her pistol cracked, her shot going wide. Yvonne's gun cracked in reply and winged Snowball in her left shoulder. The impact of the shot flung her back against the car where Ritchie instinctively grabbed hold of her.   
  
Karen struggled to her feet, immediately aware that some grotesque trick of fate had transformed her appearance into the classic damsel in distress, Doris Day Cowboy Western style, complete with flouncy dress.   
  
"I can't remember putting this bloody dress on first thing in the morning even though I know I'm half asleep. The whole of Larkhall must have been laughing their heads off at me. This day has been a nightmare from beginning to end."  
  
Totally mortified yet pleased to be rescued, Karen started to walk towards Yvonne in these ridiculous shoes to match that destiny had chosen her when she felt a frightful wrench to the ankle and fell over headlong and this stupid dress seemed to wrap herself round her legs and ……..  
  
and……and, she rolled sideways and toppled down with a bump onto the floor, pulling the quilt with her on top.  
  
"Where the hell am I?" Karen asked feeling dazed and confused, mentally in dreamland.  
  
"You've been tossing and turning keeping me bleeding awake half the night." Yvonne mumbled sleepily, "and not for the right bleeding reasons. Come on, you'd better come back into bed and tell me what happened,"as Yvonne poked her head over the side of the bed. In her understated matter of fact way that was exactly what Karen needed at that point to get her bearings.  
  
Karen scrabbled at her surroundings to ease herself up off the corner of the floor and the bed where she was stuck. She half flopped, half slid sideways back into her double bed that she had somehow fallen out of. She snuggled up next to Yvonne's warm comforting body to make her feel real again.  
  
"I dreamed that I was in a Wild West film with you and Snowball was trying to kill me after I got dragged out of the car boot……….And you came to rescue me."  
  
"Oh, yeah, and I was dressed as bleeding Wyatt Earp with a six shooter, Karen." Yvonne joked, trying to get her head round this one.  
  
"Nearly right, Yvonne." Karen said with a straight face."And I was also back in time at the time of the fire."   
  
She stumbled on searching for words in disjointed phrases as much as she could make sense of her nightmare. As much as anything else, Yvonne's down to earth Cockney accent and her physical presence did wonders in dragging her back from her grotesque nightmare that she had lived so that and ease her into the early morning sunshine.   
  
Hazy thoughts passed across her mind like the first taste of ground mist on an otherwise sunny day that Snowball and Ritchie had to be faced, for real, across the great divide between the visitor's gallery and the dock where the two accused awaited justice. Perhaps today, the ghosts that haunted her dreams would have a decent burial. But till then, after her unconscious had been grappling all night with this in its scrambled way, she deserved to lie in blissful limbo in her bed with the tenderness and comfort of Yvonne's warm body to hold onto. 


	53. Part Fifty Three

Part Fifty Three   
  
On the Friday morning when they reconvened in the public gallery, Karen privately thought she'd seen enough of this place to last her a lifetime, and wondered how the Judge could stand it day in day out. They had adopted a way of sitting, with Lauren on the far left of the front row, and Roisin next to her. They would be followed usually by Cassie, Barbara, Yvonne and then Karen, with only the occasional alteration. It was an accepted arrangement that Karen and Lauren sat as far from each other as possible. A cease fire still hadn't been reached between Yvonne and Lauren on the subject of Karen, and Yvonne was all too aware that hostilities would resume with a vengeance after the trial was over. Karen took note that the two spineless-looking individuals that had been present yesterday had once again taken their places a couple of rows behind. When they all rose at the Judge's entrance, Karen thought that if this charade went on much longer, the whole cast of this farcical play might just take root.   
  
"Ladies and gentlemen," John began as he looked at the jury. "In the words of Mr. Justice Roskill,in the Crown versus List 1996, it is my duty to ensure a fair trial. I consider that I have fulfilled this duty to the best of my ability. You have heard from two excellent opposing councils, both of which have presented to you a range of witnesses, whose testimonies you can either believe or disbelieve. Your task will not be an easy one. Both defendants are charged with conspiracy to commit arson, and you must decide whether either, both or neither of them is guilty of this crime. By extension of conspiracy to commit arson, and as a result of Sharon Wiley's death, Tracy Pilkinton, also referred to throughout this trial as Snowball Merriman, is charged with manslaughter. If your feeling is that she is not guilty of conspiracy to commit arson, then she must therefore by extension, not be guilty of the manslaughter of Sharon Wiley. Tracy Pilkinton is further charged with grievous bodily harm. In making your decision as to her guilt or innocence on this charge, you must decide whether her clear refusal to release the gun from her possession makes her guilty of this crime, or, if, because she did not intend to shoot her co-defendant, she is innocent. As well as being charged with conspiracy to commit arson, Ritchie Atkins is also charged with assisting an offender and with the unlawful possession of a firearm. You may consider that these charges are somewhat minor compared to those of his co-defendant, but I urge you to give them just as much time and examination. The unlawful possession of a firearm and that of assisting an offender, are extremely serious, but perhaps more so in this case. You may feel that the way in which Mr. Atkins assisted his offender led to the untimely and unnecessary death of Sharon Wiley. However, you may also decide otherwise. There are many judges who do not encourage their juries to give some thought to the possible sentence they might recommend should any defendant be found guilty. I am not one of those judges. If you have a sensible suggestion to make with regards to any outcome of your verdict, then I will give it due consideration. Last of all, as this case is a somewhat complex one, the verdict you give must be as a result of a unanimous vote. I will only consider allowing a verdict by majority vote if a protracted delay in deciding is encountered. Court is adjourned until such time as a verdict can be reached. Good luck."   
  
As the weather was still sunny, though as heavy as a fur coat, they all made their way outside. As Yvonne had done on the first morning while she waited to give evidence, Cassie went off and returned with an armful of newspapers and magazines which she dropped on the bench between Roisin and Barbara. Yvonne lit a cigarette and watched the birds that seemed to inhabit the eaves of the old court building. Lauren moved over and sat next to her mother.   
  
"Are you okay?" She asked. This being the most civil thing her daughter had said to her since Monday, Yvonne didn't waste it.   
  
"I've got a really bad feeling about today," Said Yvonne quietly.   
  
"That's just because you've got time on your hands to do nothing but stress," Replied Lauren.   
  
"No, it's not," Said Yvonne, not able to take the worried expression off her face. "I don't know what it is. Something's just not right, that's all."   
  
"Yes, your son's about to be sent to prison for a very long time, that's what's not right about today," Said Lauren, thinking her mother was finally going mad.   
  
"It's a mum thing, Lauren," Said Karen, putting down the paper she'd been reading.   
  
"Sounds like a mad thing to me," Replied Lauren, loathing any hint of communication she had to have with this woman who had insinuated her way in to Yvonne's life.   
  
"I need to see him," Said Yvonne, finally voicing what she knew she somehow had to do.   
  
"You'll be lucky," Said Lauren in disgust. "Mum, he's a defendant and you're a prosecution witness, they won't let you within shouting distance of him."   
  
"Lauren," Yvonne insisted, "I've got to tell him I'm sorry."   
  
"Mum, you've got nothing to be sorry for. Anything that's happened to Ritchie, he's brought on himself, not me, not you. Sure, he might have had some encouragement along the way from that tart Merriman plus others I could mention, but neither you nor I have done anything to push him in to this." When Lauren said the words, others I could mention, Karen jerked as if she'd been slapped. Cassie, who was sitting next to Karen, made as if to leap to her defence.   
  
"Leave it," Karen said quietly, wanting to remain as much out of this argument as possible.   
  
"Why not ask Jo Mills if you can see him," Suggested Barbara. "Anything's worth a try." Seeing that Jo had just emerged through the front doors, Yvonne went to meet her.   
  
"Jo, have you got a minute?"   
  
"All you want until the jury come back," Said Jo, looking for her cigarettes.   
  
"I need to see Ritchie." Jo had retrieved her lighter and packet of Silk Cut and held them poised as she contemplated Yvonne's request. "I know it sounds ridiculous," continued Yvonne, "but I have a really bad feeling about all this, and there's things I need to say to Ritchie before it's too late." Jo returned her addiction to her pocket and said,   
  
"I've got two sons of my own, so no, it doesn't sound ridiculous. I'm fairly sure the answer will be no, but I'll see what I can do." As Yvonne and Jo went inside, they encountered George on her way out.   
  
"George," Said Jo, "This is Yvonne Atkins. Would it be possible for her to speak to her son?"   
  
"Jo, you know the rules as well as I do. A defendant and a prosecution witness cannot interact under any circumstances."   
  
"I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important," Said Yvonne. George gave Yvonne her full attention, seeing something in her face that told her this was important.   
  
"There's the Deed," Said George, gesturing to John who was walking down the stairs. "Let's ask him." As the three women walked towards him, John smiled.   
  
"Three beautiful women simultaneously wanting my attention," He said, "It must be my lucky day."   
  
"John," Began George, "Yvonne Atkins wishes to see her son." John's expression became serious.   
  
"Is there a good reason why I should allow this?" He asked. Jo was about to speak but John held up a hand. "I'm sure Mrs. Atkins can speak for herself."   
  
"There's things Ritchie needs to hear from me, things I should have said a long time ago, and I think this might be my last chance to put things right."   
  
"From what I've heard over the last fortnight," Said John, "You aren't the one who needs to make amends."   
  
"Forgive me, Judge," Said Yvonne, looking him straight in the eye with no hint of apology, "When it comes to me and Ritchie, you don't know enough about the situation to make such an assumption." Jo and George simultaneously prepared for the thunder bolt they were sure was about to descend on Yvonne. No-one, especially not a witness, ever told John that he didn't know what he was talking about, however politely, and got away with it. But John surprised them both.   
  
"Quite," He said. "Ms Channing, will you be so good as to ask Mr. Atkins if he will see his mother?" Then looking back at Yvonne he said, "I cannot grant your wish if Mr. Atkins refuses." Looking somewhat astounded, George walked off towards the area of the court where the cells were situated.   
  
Five minutes later when she returned, George looked like she was the holder of words she didn't even want to know, let alone remember.   
  
"He said no," She said to Yvonne. "I'm sorry." This was possibly the first time either John or Jo had heard George utter those two words and they both stared at her.   
  
"What else did he say?" Asked Yvonne, somehow knowing there was more. George looked pained.   
  
"I don't think you really want to hear it," She said, not wanting to be the one to tell Yvonne what her son had so cruelly said.   
  
"Please."   
  
"He said, tell her she ain't my mother, not since she chose to stand against one of her own." John winced and an expression of fury and sadness came over Jo's face.   
  
"Thank you," Said Yvonne quietly, looking as if her world had ended.   
  
Yvonne turned and swiftly retreated outside.   
  
"What a total bastard!" Said George, her anger making her rich, clipped drawl more pronounced than usual.   
  
"My thoughts exactly," Replied Jo. "I'd better go and see if she's all right."   
  
As Yvonne moved rapidly towards the others, they could all see that something was very wrong.   
  
"The car keys," She said to Lauren. "Can I have them?"   
  
"What happened?" Asked Barbara.   
  
"Lauren, please," Yvonne insisted.   
  
"Mum, you're not having any car keys in this mood. Whatever he said, it's not worth getting yourself either pulled for speeding or killed."   
  
"I just want to be on my own for a bit," Replied Yvonne, tears finally breaking the surface. "Is that too much to ask." Karen walked over to Yvonne and handed over her own car keys.   
  
"Just be careful," Said Karen gently. Then, putting a hint of the stern parent voice in to her tone, she said, "I don't want to see a scratch on you or the car when you get back." Her lips quirking in to the briefest of smiles, Yvonne took the keys and moved towards Karen's green sports car. When Jo came outside to look for Yvonne, she saw her roaring out of the carpark in Karen's car. Karen walked over to her.   
  
"What on Earth did Ritchie say to her?" She asked without preamble.   
  
"I knew that was a bad idea," Said Jo. "I should have told her from the beginning that the answer was no." Jo gestured for Karen to follow her and they walked round to a side of the building where there was a stretch of lawn, also dotted with benches.   
  
"What happened?" Asked Karen when they'd both sat down.   
  
"Because of the usual rule about the irrevocable divide between prosecution and defence witnesses, we had to ask John's permission. He told George to see if Ritchie would speak to Yvonne. Let's just say he wasn't exactly enthusiastic about the idea."   
  
"So, what made Yvonne drive off in my car on what is possibly the last journey of its life?" When JO told Karen exactly what Ritchie had said, angry tears rose to Karen's eyes.   
  
"How could he?" She said.   
  
"I don't know," Replied Jo.   
  
"Prison seems to have done nothing but given him a cruel streak he certainly didn't have before. Do you know something, Yvonne once mentioned that Ritchie was turning in to the spitting image of his father and I didn't believe her. But I'm beginning to think she was right."   
  
"You amaze me," Said Jo, looking at Karen in total astonishment. "You say that Ritchie Atkins has acquired his so-called cruel streak whilst on remand, but you seem to forget everything he did to you and his mother leading up to the fire."   
  
"That was different," Replied Karen. Then, at Jo's disbelieving expression, she said, "I had an interesting chat with George yesterday. She said that Ritchie would never have done all that he did if it hadn't been for the constant insistence from Snowball, and I think she's right."   
  
"She is his barrister don't forget," Said Jo a little scornfully.   
  
"And she also told me something I needed to hear, so much as I know it's against everything you know to cut her any slack, she isn't all bad." Jo grinned sheepishly.   
  
"It's hard to give George credit for being even remotely human," She said.   
  
"So I gathered," Replied Karen. "Being opposite her in court must be difficult at times."   
  
"It usually means more objections and a far more acrimonious cross-examination."   
  
"Are you two talking about George?" Said John, walking across the grass. He was carrying a sandwich and a coffee and followed by the whippet Mimi.   
  
"How did you guess?" Asked Jo with a smile.   
  
"The words more objections and acrimonious cross-examination do tend to signify George." He sat down on the end of the bench next to Jo and balanced his coffee on his knee.   
  
"whose is the dog?" Asked Karen.   
  
"My daughter has a habit," Replied John, opening his sandwich. "Of unlawfully rescuing thoroughly untrained dogs from pharmaceutical laboratories and duping me in to looking after them."   
  
"What he won't tell you," Put in Jo. "Is that they manage to totally wrap him round their little fingers so that when a home is found, he doesn't want to let go." Karen smiled. After first rolling in a pile of leaves and shaking herself, Mimi scampered over to John and sat looking up at him as he bit in to a roast beef sandwich.   
  
"I ought to go and see if Yvonne's come back, and if my car's still in one piece," Said Karen, getting to her feet. As she walked away, John gave Jo a questioning glance.   
  
"I think Yvonne just wanted a bit of space," Replied Jo.   
  
As Karen walked round towards the carpark, she saw Yvonne driving back in, looking somewhat calmer than she had done earlier. As Yvonne got out of the car, she gave Karen a shaky smile.   
  
"See," She said, handing her the keys. "Not a scratch on either of us."   
  
"I'm glad to hear it," Replied Karen gently. "Jo told me what Ritchie said."   
  
"If I'm honest," Said Yvonne, "It wasn't anything I didn't expect. It was just a shock to hear it, that's all." They moved in to each other's arms with an ease gradually being born of familiarity.   
  
"You will get through this," Said Karen softly. "We both will."   
  
At around three that afternoon, Jo was sitting with Karen and Yvonne and the rest. The tension was slowly rising, Yvonne and Lauren barely able to exchange a civil word. Jo didn't think any of them could handle having to wait over the entire weekend if the jury didn't come back today. When George appeared on the top step of the court, Jo could tell by the look on her face that the time had come.   
  
"Jo," Called George. "The jury are back with a verdict." As they'd all heard George's announcement, they all moved as one towards the court. Once inside, Jo detached herself from the little group and moved towards the door by which the barristers entered. Just before they were about to go in to court, Jo and George seemed to reach for the door at the same time.   
  
"Good luck," Jo said quietly.   
  
"You too," Replied George. As they took their accustomed places at the prosecution and defense benches, neither Jo nor George could stay still. They simply stood, facing the Judge's bench ready for his return. When John sat down, the clerk of the court moved to stand in front of the jury box.   
  
"Will the foreman please stand?" He asked. "On the charge of conspiracy to commit arson, do you find the defendant, Ritchie Atkins, guilty or not guilty?"   
  
"Guilty."   
  
"On the charge of assisting an offender, do you find Ritchie Atkins, guilty or not guilty?"   
  
"Guilty."   
  
"On the charge of unlawful possession of a firearm, do you find Ritchie Atkins, guilty or not guilty?"   
  
"Guilty."   
  
"On the charge of conspiracy to commit arson, do you find the defendant, Tracy Pilkinton, guilty or not guilty?"   
  
"Guilty."   
  
"On the charge of man slaughter, do you find the defendant Tracy Pilkinton, guilty or not guilty?"   
  
"Guilty."   
  
"On the charge of grievous bodily harm, do you find Tracy Pilkinton, guilty or not guilty?"   
  
"Guilty." Throughout this, Yvonne had been gripping Karen's hand, suddenly needing to feel that someone else was physically there with her, seeing her son's fate mapped out before her eyes. Every member of the public gallery was utterly silent. As the clerk of the court retreated, John addressed the foreman of the jury.   
  
"Do you have any recommendations you would wish me to hear?"   
  
"Only one, My Lord," replied the foreman. "On the subject of Ritchie Atkins and the charge of unlawful possession of a firearm, we would advise a certain amount of leniency. Ritchie Atkins is currently paralysed from the waist down, with no hope of a recovery. The jury considers that to suffer this for the rest of his life, is perhaps a far harsher punishment than any custodial sentence that your worship may choose to impose."   
  
"I note your recommendation and will give it due consideration. Thank you." Then John fixed his gaze on Ritchie.   
  
"Mr. Atkins. Over the course of this trial, I have heard nothing but arrogance and insolence from you. You have shown a clear lack of respect both to your mother, and with regards to your relationship with Karen Betts. I have observed that when discussing the finer points of your relationship with Karen Betts, that you have achieved some sense of enjoyment in your continual degrading of her both as a woman and as a professional. I will be taking your attitude in to account when I pass sentence. You have been found guilty of three very serious crimes. The jury has made a recommendation for leniency where the charge of unlawful possession of a firearm is concerned, and I have listened to their reason for this. However, I also believe that justice must and will be served. For your part in conspiring to commit arson, I sentence you to four years. For the continual assistance of Ms Pilkinton, I sentence you to a further four years. Along with the jury's recommendation of your third and final conviction, I have one to add of my own. During the accounts given to this court by various witnesses, it has been established that you saved Karen Betts' life. This is perhaps the one and only noble act of your life, and it is one to be thankful for. On the charge of unlawful possession of a firearm, I therefore sentence you to two years. However, you may be thinking that with good behaviour you could be out in seven years. As a result of your attitude towards various prosecution witnesses together with a clear display of contempt for this court, you will serve the full ten years, before any hint of parole is discussed." Yvonne sat, with silent tears coursing down her face. Karen and Cassie, who were sat on either side of Yvonne, simultaneously put an arm round her. John adjusted his gaze to take in Snowball.   
  
"Ms Pilkinton. Never, have I met such a scheming, conniving woman as you. Throughout this trial you have acted the parts of innocent northern girl and American porn movie star to fit whichever questions were placed before you. I suspect you have done that for much of your life. Well, your charade is to be no more. For your part in conspiring to commit arson, you will serve four years. For the needless, senseless man slaughter of Sharon Wiley, you will serve ten years. For the charge of grievous bodily harm, you will serve eight years. At the end of your twenty two year sentence, I shall personally ensure that you are returned to the United States in order to serve your punishment, whether that be a custodial sentence or death by the electric chair, for the crimes you committed over there. Take them down." Snowball was completely silent as she was led away, but Ritchie had one more parting comment.   
  
"You can't do that," He shouted.   
  
"I just did," Replied John. As the clerk called out, "All rise", John was briefly aware of the scowling faces of Sir Ian Rochester and Lawrence James in the public gallery. Yvonne dug in her handbag for a tissue and scrubbed her face. The six of them moved as one down the stairs, knowing that finally it was all over.   
  
The only two left in the fast emptying court room, were Jo and George, each gathering together their papers. As a file slipped from George's hand, the contents flowing far and wide, George cursed, bringing Jo's attention on her.   
  
"Are you okay?" Asked Jo, coming over to help George pick up the scattered papers. George looked up, and Jo was shocked to see that her face was completely devoid of colour. George simply said,   
  
"I've got to tell Neil I failed." 


	54. Part fifty Four

Part 54   
  
"….Take them down …" the final words of John Deed and the trial sealed Snowball's and Ritchie's fate.  
  
A court usher secured Snowball , who still did not believe what she was hearing and led her through narrow corridors to the more functional tradesman's back entrance to the Old Bailey. Two Prison Service trucks waited at the back car park with plenty of security in view of Snowball's past record of escapes. Ritchie was likewise precariously wheeled   
  
out through the back door of the main court and along narrow corridors to the back entrance…….  
  
"Miss Barker," Snowball asked Di Barker in her best sincere gritty "Wigan voice. "can I say a quick word to me boyfriend before we part."  
  
"All right, Snowball, but no messing around." Di Barker replied, moved by Snowball's last performance.  
  
"I promise, Miss.You have my word." Snowball replied , looking directly at Di and then she was led over to where Ritchie was waiting.   
  
"Richie ,I love you goodbye," Snowball called out desperately just before he was being wheeled towards a more customised version of the all too familiar white Prison van. Then she was frogmarched into her own separate van. This was the parting of the ways for the two of them with no escape.  
  
"Make sure that the bloody press don't get round the back. We're not having any paparazzi sneaking any shots of the famous actress," the police Inspector sarcastically directed the small force there to ensure security.  
  
"Right, step on it." The police constable directed the first vehicle to zoom out of the security gates and was off down the busy London Streets closely followed by the second one.  
  
Yvonne emerged blinking into the daylight, leading the way, Lauren's arm linked in hers, both flanked by Roisin ,Cassie and Babs. Karen hung back directly behind Yvonne. Miss Betts was a minor official of the Prison Service and it had been dinned in her experience, not to talk directly to the press, not even now when her own fate as Karen was so personally and so deeply involved.  
  
"Twenty two years for Miss Pilkinton and ten years for Mr Atkins, is it? How do you feel about the length of the sentences. Mr Atkins was your son wasn't he." the first question was fired by the man in the smart blue suit who had pushed to the front of the pack.  
  
"Are you talking as if he is dead? He is my son." Yvonne exclaimed loudly. "But he got into bad company, the woman who was in the same nick that I was at. She nearly killed some of the best mates in my life who've stuck to me like glue, who are as good as family to me. She actually killed one woman whose partner is still grieving over her. She didn't give a shit. And my son who went along with her schemes was as guilty as sin."Yvonne finished on a loud note, her voice carrying backwards to George Channing who smiled slightly at her very own words being echoed. "Yes he is my son but he got an absolutely fair trial."   
  
"I'm his sister." Lauren Atkins hard gaze unsettled the journalist."And he got everything that was coming to him."  
  
"We were all inside with Yvonne Atkins and I can say as God is my witness that Mrs Atkins is telling the absolute truth." Babs, dressed in her best suit and speaking in her impeccable Middle England accent further confused the journalist's preconceptions.  
  
"What," a hardboiled reporter from the Daily Mail sneered. "The wife of a gangland boss tell the truth and talking about fair trials."  
  
"To live outside the law you must be honest," Cassie's insolent blue eyes stared down the reporter. Accustomed as he was to link 'asylum seeker' and 'abuse' in his daily writings and to call for 'firm government', he was no more likely than the likes of Neil Houghton or the Lord Chancellor to think in ways that cut sideways across the narrow grooves of the freedom he was accustomed to travel the length of.   
  
"I don't understand a word you're saying, miss." came the supercilious reply.  
  
"I didn't expect you to but then again, I know Yvonne well. You print what you like and I'm supposed to read it in the paper and it's supposed to tell me what this trial's been about better than I can say supposedly. Even though we've been there, lived it all. So suppose we talk and you listen." Cassie replied with a straight face and with all the irony in the world. This was a turnabout for Cassie who normally didn't do subtlety and, for once in her life, never uttered the word 'nobbing' either.  
  
"Mr Reporter, since you know so much about me, Yvonne Atkins, then you had better know that the judge who ran this trial is no ordinary man." Yvonne cut in on the discussion.  
  
It was on the tip of Cassie's tongue to say that the Judge was so outrageously good looking that she was almost tempted to go straight but at the last minute she stopped. She was aware that she was part of the group with a heavy responsibility to get it straight, for them all and those still left in Larkhall. It was an 'in joke' that these nobbing brain dead reporters would twist out of context and that would be a big mistake. At the very last moment, they all had to get it right.   
  
"Have you a few words to say to the press on behalf of the Prison service." Karen Betts was asked by a spare reporter while the others endured the endless flash bulbs and the microphones pushed into their faces.  
  
"I'm sorry but I can't comment as all press queries should be addressed to the Governing Governor, Neil Grayling. That's GRAYLING," Karen spelled out." I can give you the phone number of Larkhall Prison and I can promise you that he's the sort of person who is only too willing to communicate with the press." The flat level tone in Karen's voice was only betrayed by the faintest hint of a smirk on one side of her face. the man is a coward and will be shaking in his shoes at the fear that he may get it wrong with Area Management and Sir Ian and Lawrence James. Thank heavens, I'm only a Wing Governor, Karen reflected, I have all the freedom that I'll get and I won't have to sell my soul the way he has.   
  
"Yeah, Cassie Tyler and Roisin Connor dragged that man out of the burning library and saved his life." Lauren was sharp eared enough to overhear the conversation to the back of her. Because she was not directly involved in the events described in the trial, Lauren was less emotionally drained by the intensity of the build up to the trial and sharper off the mark.   
  
Nice one, Lauren, Yvonne thought, as she repeated her initial statement for yet another press reporter. The spontaneous words that escaped her mouth at the very beginning of the impromptu press conference were gradually refined and sharpened up as she went along.   
  
"Did you have to do that for someone who locked you both up. I wouldn't have thought that you would waste your time saving the life of a screw." the young female press interviewer asked incredulously. There could be a good angle, she thought, if she pushed hard enough and played these Mrs Averages along. 'Porn star jailed for arson. The inside life of glamour queen Snowball Merriman.' These were the instant headlines that had formed in her mind. Too bad about the prisoners but a story about them would be as dull as ditchwater. Leave that sort of thing for the snob press as she knew what the average reader wanted to read about and she wanted to dig around for what she was convinced was the truth if she could get there. Her training in journalism gave her that effortless assurance and self confidence over the fumbling, stumbling members of the public she came across from time to time.  
  
"The man is a human being." Roisin retorted passionately."If it ever comes to you that your own life is in danger, you won't be so quick to say who should live or who should die. Not even Snowball Merriman and Ritchie Atkins."   
  
"That's very noble of you," came the sarcastic reply.  
  
"Comes of being a mother." Roisin's lilting Irish tones explained with all the wisdom that it represented."When you've grown up a bit, then you will understand."  
  
It seemed like a lifetime that the small group was huddled together in mutual defence on the wide stone steps outside the Old Bailey and their voices were becoming tired. However, the pack of press reporters had gradually thinned out and they were aware that the questions had fallen silent..   
  
"We're heading for the pub, girls." And to Karen who was looking fidgety."And you're coming with us, Karen. You're one of us. You don't need to hold Grayling's hand while he talks to the press."  
  
"I'd be the wrong sex for a start, I mean to hold Grayling's hand.Vicars are his type or so I hear," Karen joked nervously.  
  
"Oh so you've heard that too,"Yvonne grinned broadly at the thought that Karen had her sources of information much like she used to.  
  
The six women walked rapidly away from the Old Bailey whose ancient structure had so dominated their lives for such an intense part of their lives and which none of them would fully leave behind. Ten minutes later, and the vast overpowering , all enveloping structure was reduced to the size and shape that they saw on the TV screen. Then they rounded the corner and a pub sign caught their eye. This place would do for them.  
  
Roisin took the lead and bought in a round of drinks. Lauren gave her a hand to carry the drinks, still jarred by the obvious closeness of Karen and Yvonne. There was something soothing and motherly about Roisin that Lauren liked as much as she liked Cassie as the original ' girls just wanna have fun' clubbing companion.  
  
"You let that snotty journalist have it good and proper." Lauren told her admiringly.  
  
"You know, Lauren." Roisin explained."I'm a mum. I hold down a good job and I saw that slip of a girl who knows nothing of life yet her words will be on the front pages telling me how I should think and feel. To be bossed around in my thoughts by her," Roisin finished on a derisive note.  
  
"You must be getting middle aged, Roisin." Lauren teased.  
  
"Comes of getting to know life, Lauren. Only someone like you gets a head start." Roisin's brilliant smile reassured Lauren that she wasn't included in the category of the young and ignorant. Not with those years of running the Atkins business on her own while mum was inside.  
  
Cassie looked in concern at the sadness in Yvonne's expression where there should be joy in seeing that Snowball tart being finally nailed. It was Ritchie and, even then, she knew that Yvonne was worrying if Ritchie would be looked after properly.  
  
"It's Ritchie isn't it, Yvonne."   
  
"Yeah well, I lost Ritchie years ago. When he got to grow up like Charlie right under my very nose and I was too blind to see it," Yvonne replied mournfully. Even now, Ritchie was her little angel.  
  
Cassie was really worried for Yvonne and thought that a bit of mad humour would lighten things, directed at the one person they could all equally laugh at.  
  
"Get the James Fenner's latest must have fashion accessory guide to wear to all the best parties. A gun up your crotch." Cassie exploded in laughter to the others who, in the release of all the tension that had built up, had an attack of the giggles.  
  
"I wonder how long it will take for that story to get back to Larkhall." Yvonne grinned wickedly."I'd love Denny to hear that one. It would make her day."  
  
The bar had two populations present, the usual morose lunchtime punters content to nurse their drinks and a very lively slightly mad group of women who had invaded the bar bringing their own electric atmosphere with them.   
  
"As if I would be that indiscreet." Karen smirked." Not that the new Prison Officer Selina won't talk. She hates Fenner's guts. He tried it on with her once."  
  
"She must have brains then. Good looking, too. And there's something about her that tells me that she's not straight." Cassie smirked in her inimitable way.  
  
"Come off it, Cassie." Roisin laughed." For all you know, she's got a boyfriend who's faithful and devoted to her. Anyway let's talk about something sensible, like……."  
  
"……like what do you do on a freezing cold day, you're dying for a piss when there's a long queue for the toilet and you've got Mr Designer Fenner's guns stuck up you." Cassie laughed, causing Karen to collapse in helpless laughter.   
  
Yvonne looked on protectively. She knew exactly how cheap Karen must have felt herself to be. She couldn't say what she wanted to in words but for all the girls to make Karen the centre of the protective circle of conversation did what needed to be done. As she sat listening to the chatter of the others, Yvonne shivered as had not Ritchie talked in exactly the same way that Charlie used to in times gone past. And Ritchie had grown up hating his father so much. It touched her in the visitor's room, many months ago when Ritchie said that he'd warned her that Charlie could 'charm the birds off the trees and wring their necks afterwards.' It seemed that Ritchie had really cared for her like a devoted son should. That and the bouquet of flowers. Like father, like son.  
  
Yvonne put down her drink and stood up.   
  
"There's something I've got to do," She said, "I'll be back in ten minutes." She walked out of the pub and began looking for an off licence. Finding one only a couple of streets away, she went in and purchased the finest bottle of Moet they had and persuaded the girl behind the counter to wrap it up for her. She wrote some brief words on the card that this very young and attractive girl had thoughtfully provided, and walked back towards the court carrying the bottle. The press had thankfully all disappeared long ago, and when Yvonne walked in through one of the front doors, all was fairly quiet. She stood for a moment, not quite sure where she should go, but catching sight of the Judge's clerk, she approached her.   
  
"Mrs. Cooper, isn't it?" Yvonne asked. Coope smiled.   
  
"Yes. What can I do for you?"   
  
"Would you happen to know where I could find Jo Mills?"   
  
"Mrs. Mills is upstairs with the Judge," Said Coope, realising too late just how that might sound. Yvonne held out the wrapped bottle.   
  
"Please could you give this to her?"   
  
"Of course," Said Coope taking the bottle.   
  
When Coope returned to John's chambers, he looked up with a smile.   
  
"Is that for me?" He asked.   
  
"No, Judge," Said Coope, putting the bottle down on the table. "It's for Mrs. Mills."   
  
"Who's it from?" Asked Jo.   
  
"I think it was Mrs. Atkins who asked me to give it to you." Tearing off the gold-coloured paper, Jo stared at the finest bottle of champagne she'd ever been given.   
  
"You lucky girl," Said Jon enviously. Utterly astounded, Jo opened the card. It simply said:   
  
"I can't celebrate my son being sent to prison, but this was a victory for you. This last fortnight hasn't been easy for any of us, but you've worked harder than anyone. I owe you one for your achievement of justice for Shaz Wiley, and for Karen.   
  
Enjoy every drop.   
  
Yvonne." 


	55. Part Fifty Five

Part Fifty Five   
  
Coope was busy finishing off the paperwork on the huge Crown versus Atkins Pilkinton file. The bulky evidence folder and certificates of conviction were being tagged together and bound in manila tape ready to go to the court records office. She was acutely aware that a very fidgety John Deed was fingering his chin, in deep contemplation, on the point of asking a question and then backing away from it.  
  
"Is there anything else you wanted me to do, Judge?" she asked, not beating about the bush.  
  
"Coope, you are a lifesaver," John Deed replied in hearty ringing tones.  
  
Hang on, he hasn't even asked me what it is he wants me to do , Coope thought. This can't be my usual doctor's receptionist role of delicately putting off persistent casual girlfriends popping by on the off chance because 'the judge is busy discussing a client's case with Mrs Mills in chambers.'  
  
"Well, I can hardly promise to be a lifesaver unless you tell me what you want help with," Coope archly replied.  
  
"Er no," John stammered, temporarily stuck for words." But it's like this, Coope. I want a bit of advice on cooking a meal."  
  
That means that he wants me to stay discreetly in the background cooking the meal for some girlfriend of the moment whom he wants to impress, Coope thought to herself, wrongly just for once.  
  
"I'm cooking a meal for Mrs Mills tonight. Something special for her." John smiled looking expectantly at Coope in the same manner as Mimi did to him, with the collar and lead gripped between her teeth, ears pricked up and hoping for the magic word 'walk' from John.  
  
"But Mrs Mills normally cooks when you go to see her. An excellent cook or so I hear," Coope replied in that maddeningly reasonable way.  
  
"All right, all right," John Deed capitulated in despair. "I had a bet with Mrs Mills and I lost. My wager was cooking a meal for her."  
  
"Just what was the bet about, if you don't mind me asking?" Coope asked in her most innocent tones. From his manner, John very much minded explaining what the bet was about but he was clearly desperate.  
  
"I bet Mrs Mills that Yvonne Atkins and Karen Betts were not, a couple. The idea was absurd, or so I thought." John's jerky tones were forced out of his mouth as if it were a confession extracted under torture.  
  
"Well, of course they are," Coope responded in the blandest, most matter-of-fact manner."Even from my limited position, I could have told you that one ages ago if only you had asked me. Still, I suppose you thought you knew best. You are, after all, the judge."  
  
"Yes yes yes," John Deed cut in to head off Coope winding him up even more. His hands were waving like windmills. Give him five rounds with a histrionic George at her most venomously plate throwing, he could deal with that but not this feeling of helpless dependency. All he wanted was a recipe, not a lengthy cross examination.  
  
"Just an easy recipe for a learner cook, that's all I need Coope."  
  
"And at your age? A woman's work is never done or so you'll find out." Coope's smile split her face from ear to ear. At the end of her sustained teasing, she relented. It was the pleading expression in his eyes which showed up how desperate the poor man was.   
  
"Right, one tin of tomatoes, one onion, carrots, some salad garnish, an eight ounce pack of minced beef, dried spaghetti, one lemon, beef stock cubes. A jar of Dolmio sauce for spaghetti bolognese, a large packet of smoked salmon, Parmesan cheese, strawberries, cream, a small Granary loaf and, last of all, a bottle of Jo's favourite wine." John muttered to himself."Shouldn't be hard. People do it everyday."  
  
If the truth be known, he was talking to himself to bolster his own spirits rather than demonstrate to the world how thoroughly he was in command of the situation. He needed the choice of wine badly, not for the alcohol content but to grasp at the one item he felt confident in choosing.  
  
He drove his pride and joy, his grey open top sports car to the local out of town Sainsbury's supermarket which Coope had recommended. What the devil was he doing here rather than lying back in contemplation, his favourite Mozart symphony soothing his nerves from the long drawn out slog of the trial. Captain Scott, if he had returned from discovering the South Pole, and coming home to his nearest and dearest would have felt similarly put out if his wife had told him go down to the local butchers to queue up for a joint of best sirloin as she didn't know he was coming back quite so soon from the frozen wastes of Antarctica. What bruised his spirits most was seeing the broad smile on Jo's face when he announced that he was going to 'pop out and do a bit of shopping.'  
  
"I'm looking forward to this one, John. It isn't often that I'm treated to a meal cooked by someone else after all these years of cooking for my sons."   
  
John didn't answer. Why was Jo being so insufferably right about that little bet that he had so confidently entered into. It seemed like a brilliant surefire idea at the time.   
  
John followed the directions and was confronted by the sight of a huge carpark stretching for miles, or so it seemed. Where the devil was he supposed to park his car, he wondered? Eventually, after much inching back and forth, he manoeuvred his car into a slot and looked nervously behind him in case some careless individual scraped the side of his car. He followed his destiny into the huge open mouth of the supermarket which greeted him with the most hideous Muzak which offended his artistic sensibilities.  
  
Good God, supermarkets have changed since the time I used to do the shopping when I was living with George. They were small friendly places. He remembered ruefully clutching his list written in George's firm writing and still firmer directions. Where in hell was he supposed to start, he wondered. He was not interested in men's and ladies' clothing off the peg, or books about gardening which were first to hand. Why in hell didn't those responsible for planning supermarkets set them out in any logical order. He just wanted some food, dammit, so why shouldn't the food be first to sight when he went in. The sheer scale of the place overwhelmed him, checkouts stretching as far as his eye could see and aisles of assorted shopping only going so far. The ghastly thing was an abomination of nature.   
  
A brainwave struck his reeling senses and a flashback of the time that he had been taken round the famous Hampton Court maze when he was young. His sense of the absurd told him at that time to try to avoid at all costs getting to the centre of the maze and in that way, you will find the centre and vice versa when you wanted to get out. He had overridden his father on this in the commanding way that even then had become part of his nature and, lo and behold, the plan had worked with marvellous simplicity. Likewise, he had set forwards along the most irrelevant part of the shop, never intending in his conscious mind to find anything. Sure enough, he had only travelled a short way when the vast range of lettuces and tomatoes, row on row came in sight. All he had to do was to pick the veg that he wanted.  
  
"Excuse me," John Deed asked a little old lady, ingratiatingly after every form of fruit and veg presented itself but the few he wanted."can you tell me where the carrots and onions are?"  
  
"Second aisle that way," she pointed without hesitation."Right at the end. You can't miss it."  
  
"Thank you, Madam," John replied. She wouldn't miss it but he might, he thought to himself. With utter gratitude, he selected his purchases and set off for the remote far reaches of the hypermarket where no man had set foot before.  
  
Focussing his eyes upwards, he spotted huge overhead hoardings indicating certain categories of purchases, most of which seemed either irrelevant or hopelessly unspecific. Where does one find a Dolmio sauce bottle, is it amongst 'sauces' or whatever. Sighing, he trudged manfully onwards, trying to shut his ears off from the dreadful Muzak. If ever a civil court case presents itself against the retail food network for invasion of human rights for subjecting hapless shoppers to musical purgatory, he would wrest the files out of the hands of Niven or Legover Everard himself. None of them could do heartfelt justice to the matter.  
  
"I'm ever so sorry, madam," John said, his musings having distracted him from the art of navigating a shopping trolley with one wonky wheel round a supermarket so that his trolley had collided into another.  
  
The woman took one glance at the harassed man and her temper subsided in an instant, seeing the look of stress on the man's face, courteously told him where the Dolmio sauces were and went on her way. John smiled a little sheepishly to himself as he realised that the sauces were only at the end of the aisle that he was on. How the devil did she know where it was. When he got to the display, he was thrown into a state of confusion at the next decision he had to make. Even in that small section, there was an endless choice of "Original Dolmio", "Dolmio with mushrooms" etc.How the devil was he going to decide that one as Coope had not forewarned him of the bewildering range of choices he had to make and, for once, he had left his mobile behind. Meditatively, he inspected three jars and checked the ingredients and desperately racked his brain in an effort to work out what would add most to the meal that he had obsessively set himself the task to produce come what may. His mind froze in a lock of indecision until the oldest answer to his dilemma flashed into his mind, the toss of a coin. The same female shopper was very much bemused by the sight of a middle aged man flipping a fifty pence coin to himself and shouting 'That's the one I really wanted' in satisfied tones. You meet all sorts in supermarkets, she thought philosophically.  
  
In John Deed's haphazard wanderings round the hypermarket, he rounded an aisle and, there before his eyes, the heavenly dream in the middle of the living nightmare, the wine section. Instantly, his chaotic thought processes turned to gleeful precision as he selected the bottle of Chablis that he, or rather Jo, favoured out of the endless array of near identical bottles. This was a different matter altogether. He lingered over the selection of wines for future plans on what he might buy for the next four possible social events. Nothing like advance planning in these matters, John thought.  
  
He had a sickening thought as he realised that he had forgotten salad garnish, bread and cream as his uncrossed off list and shopping trolley stared back at him accusingly. Now where in hell does a normal shopper find these items, his upturned eyes asked a practical joker of a fate despairingly.   
  
By what dazed process that John Deed found himself at the checkout a lifetime later, he could not recall except the grim satisfaction of a mission achieved. The slow trudge by which he found his way to the front of the queue was something that, after all he had endured, nothing else mattered, even the totally captive position with which the Muzak malevolently held him at its mercy. He eyed up the shop assistant in some attempt to restore his spirits but the damned inconsiderate chairman of the board had decreed that a shapeless fitting smock would cover the contours of the female form that nature should have decreed should be exposed. Was nothing going right tonight except that he had survived so far.  
  
Once he had settled up, the open exit beckoned the spectre of freedom to John and he was out and away. John Deed came out of the supermarket, totally harrassed, pushing the trolley to the car. After he had manoeuvred out of the car park, his fingers desperately found the tape that Charlie had left for him. Nothing but Black Sabbath could possibly match the total angst that he felt and Ozzy Osborne wailing "Paranoid" to Tony Iommi's power chord guitar thrash wafted far out behind him. He cut past Lawrence James's' surprised face as his wife was set to drag him round clothes shops to add an exquisite edge to the absolute torture of that trial and the dressing down that Sir Ian had given him. Somehow he was to blame for everything going wrong and his wife had got that spending look in her eye and was not to be denied her pleasure , disregarding the deaf mute shuffling three paces behind her. Likewise, the strident sounds competed with and dominated the bass boosted sounds of the local boy racer that John Deed was temporarily next to in the traffic jam. The power of rock lives on forever.  
  
John sat back blissfully in his driving seat, the music still battering at his ears and disturbing life, both humankind and bird, in his path until he completed the all too short distance to his digs and the serenity of the judiciary were greeted by the far from dulcet tones of Black Sabbath.  
  
"What the devil is going on?" Michael Niven complained as he strode out to the front door. "Has this neighbourhood been chosen for a gathering of Hells Angels."  
  
Half expecting a crowd of hairy Hells Angels, complete with dirty jeans, boots and chain studded leather jackets, Michael Niven was disconcerted by the sight of a respectably besuited John Deed holding a plastic Sainsbury's carrier bag.  
  
"Have you seen where that frightful row was coming from, Deed?" Michael Niven asked, trying to assess the situation and proceed delicately.  
  
"Oh, that was me, Michael. Black Sabbath, you know. Charlie bought it for me." John Deed replied in a tone that suggested that the flying saucer that had landed in the field was perfectly normal, the Martians were perfectly friendly and he had everything perfectly under control.   
  
After smashing his door down, Deed goes heavy rock, Niven shook his head. What will happen next. In the good old days, this used to be such a peaceful respectable place.  
  
"I'm glad everything is under control. Perhaps we can have some peace now," Michael Niven said with a certain amount of edge as he retreated to the safety of his rooms. It isn't safe out here.  
  
"I'm just going out anyway, Michael. No problems," John Deed assured him. You may be all right, Michael, but I've got to cook a damned meal, John Deed said under his breath after he had got a few personal things ready for staying the night with Jo.   
  
His car slid out onto the main road once again, Black Sabbath still trailing behind him though not at the original volume that any self respecting rock musician would have pumped out. Somehow this new quirk of John Deed's complex personality had taken shape, however uneasily it sat with the virtuoso violinist playing Schubert. Then again, both type of performers had the knack of pulling the birds.  
  
The last guitar chords were switched off as John Deed's car came to rest outside Jo's mews cottage and he knocked at the door with the one finger that wasn't holding either shopping or personal stuff..  
  
"Had a good time food shopping?" Jo asked brightly."You know where the kitchen is, John but mind you, don't make a mess in there," she finished in that forceful female tone that could repel an invasion of Nazi Stormtroopers with voice alone if they showed her sanctum any similar disrespect.  
  
Snowball sat staring at the dull, gray walls of her cell. Straight down the block they'd sent her, supposedly for her own protection. but she didn't care. She would have quite liked to spend a last evening with some of the girls, at least with those who'd arrived after the fire, but it wasn't to be. No more would the likes of Denny Blood or al McKenzy look on her with a mixture of scorn and loathing. No more would she fear to walk along the landing or to take a shower. But they'd see. They'd regret every bad word they'd ever said about her, especially that bitch Betts. She should have blown Betts' brains out when she had the chance. But Ritchie just had to interfere didn't he. Just because he'd had his dick inside Betts once or twice, he thought that meant he had to save her pathetic, worthless life. Not that she thought Betts had been much good in the sack anyway. Not like her, not like Snowball Merriman, who could put on any show Ritchie asked for. She could remember all the good times they'd had together. She'd dress up for him sometimes, playing any part he wanted. Snowball had hated having to sit there in court, day after day, listening to those two barristers trading ideas about what Ritchie and Betts had got up too. Even that petite posh bitch who was supposed to be defending her and Richie, she didn't give Betts anything like the verbal going over she deserved. But Ritchie had told them all. If nothing else, she was proud of him for this. Snowball smirked as she relived this memory. He'd told them exactly what Karen Betts was, how she liked it rough, how she begged Ritchie to hold her down and fuck her senseless. A hard, cruel smile crept over Snowball's face as she thought of what Karen Betts and Ritchie's cow of a mother would think after this night was out. They'd feel guilty as hell, the pair of them. They'd both stood up in court and did nothing but slag her and Ritchie's every move. Yvonne Atkins ought to know better than to go against one of her own. Perhaps the only thing Snowball regretted about what her and Ritchie would do this night, was that they hadn't been able to make love one last time. The last woman to give him pleasure wouldn't be her, his rightful lover. No, the last woman to give Ritchie an orgasm would forever be Karen Betts. She pulled a grotesque face at herself in the tiny mirror when she thought of this, but in mid-maniacal glare, she reminded herself that very soon, she would be with Ritchie for ever. Never again would they be parted, as long as Ritchie went through with it and Snowball had no reason to think he wouldn't. They would be together, as they should be, and Ritchie would be able to walk again. No more would prison bars and a fractured spine keep them apart. Not nothing nor no-one, not even Yvonne Atkins or Karen Betts would be able to separate them then. What she'd managed to say to Ritchie at the back of the old Bailey would be enough. They'd been able to exchange a few letters here and there via the unofficial postal system that was often more reliable than the real one, and in those letters they'd made their plan. If they were sent down, which even Snowball was realistic enough to know might happen, they would finish it once and for all. The Judge's words briefly flitted in to Snowball's mind and she realised he was right, their charade would be over. Like Romeo and Juliet they would end their lives for the sake of love and love alone. Was Yvonne playing the part of the mother of the house of Montague, determined that her son would never marry the evil temptress Juliet? Well, she wasn't about to have any choice in the matter, and Karen Betts who had taken the part of the nurse a little too far, no more would she be able to interrupt and interfere at every crucial moment. They would be gone far from prison, far from pain. Snowball had no real doubts that Ritchie would go through with it. After all, with no legs and no lover, what else did he have to go on living for. As she picked up the razor blade that she'd kept hidden for weeks now, in wait for this very purpose, her last thought as she cut deep in to her radial artery, was a prayer that Ritchie wouldn't be long in coming to her.   
  
John looked nervously around him at the kitchen, the part of Jo's flat with which he was least familiar. This was where he was long accustomed to seeing her pottering about making a meal while he stretched luxuriantly on the sofa reading the Guardian.  
  
"Don't mind me, John, I'm just popping in to put the Chablis and the Moet in the fridge to keep them chilled. I'll be reading the paper while you cook dinner," Jo called out.  
  
Something is very wrong here, John thought to himself. Then again, his world had not been right since he had seen Yvonne and Karen kissing. Such a waste, he thought, as it still got to him.  
  
He looked nervously round Jo's spick and span kitchen, hoping not to annoy the saucepans as he assembled his tools for the job. This preliminary action gave him a flicker of satisfaction. How in hell does this peeler work ,John thought, as he started gouging at the outer layer of the skin of the carrots until he gradually became a little more used to it. Such an ineffective tool, he reflected as he painstakingly tipped the peel into the wastebin. The carrots are a bit small, but never mind, now for the onions. John's eyes smarted as his knife sliced up the onions which made it difficult for him to pick out the fiddly bits of outside skin which he'd forgotten to peel off to begin with. When he came to dice the carrots according to Coope's emphatic instructions to keep them small, he never realised how an inoffensive looking vegetable could be provokingly fiddly, especially in having its revenge by scattering some of itself on the floor. In a panic, John discreetly picked them up and strained them through a sieve as there wasn't much to spare.   
  
"Oh, tomatoes," John said to himself to keep himself on track and he resolutely attacked the tin of tomatoes with a tin opener at just the right cutting angle.   
  
"Right now," John said with determination when he followed the next instruction in Coope's manual and scattered the diced vegetables into a large heated frying pan and hastily turned the heat down low as the damp carrot fragments began to spit and splutter back at him.  
  
"Are you getting on all right, John?" Jo chirped up hearing the sounds of muttering seeping through the closed door like some gas.  
  
"Yeah, fine." John replied shortly at which point Jo smiled even more and started to study the financial section of the Guardian. This is the life, she thought.   
  
By tenderly nursing the dinner as if it were his first born as, in a way it was, he had the veg at the mystical point where he could confidently gently fry the mince and, in a moment of enthusiasm, started to sing a snatch of operatic aria to himself which a hugely grinning Jo overheard as her feet reclined on the footstool. Her radar hearing was finely attuned to what she imagined was happening in the kitchen. When John added the stock cube and the tinned tomatoes he was in his element and with a flourish, added a touch of garlic and vigorously stirred the mixture.  
  
"The pasta," John shouted. "When do I start the pasta, Jo?"  
  
"Look at the instructions on the side, John," Jo called out clearly "and start boiling the water in the kettle at the time the bolognese cooking time coincides with the pasta cooking time. You can leave the bolognese to gently simmer apart from an occasional stir."  
  
"How the devil can Jo see through walls and know how far I've got with the meal. And how do you do two things at the same time?" John asked himself.  
  
"Very easily, for a woman." Jo's audible grin could be heard by a mortified John.   
  
At that point, the neglected spatula acted as if some malign poltergeist inhabited it by flopping out of the pan and clattering on the floor complete with a few spots of bolognese. In a total panic, John grabbed feverishly at a strip of kitchen roll and scrubbed and scrubbed at the floor, hoping Jo wouldn't notice afterwards. Nevertheless, the man who kept his nerve in the most abstruse trials persevered and somehow, he found that he was able to manage both jobs side by side and he even had time to prepare the smoked salmon first course and serve the strawberries into some cut glass dishes.  
  
"I'll uncork the wine, John." Jo helpfully called out   
  
"Just like a woman," John muttered in an aggrieved tone to himself."Takes the easiest job."  
  
John wiped his forehead. He was sweating and every bone ached in his body. In comparison, the entire trial hadn't physically taken it out of him in the hard graft that cooking this banquet demanded of him. He glanced round the kitchen an every square inch of work space was covered by plates and cooking utensils of all shapes and descriptions.   
  
At that moment as he stirred the gently bubbling bolognese mixture, Jo sidled past the kitchen door elegantly smoking a cigarette to duly inspect the handiwork  
  
"Take that damned cigarette out of my kitchen!" John said tersely at this interloper.  
  
"Sorry, John," Jo meekly replied."I just came by to see how you're going on. Don't worry, the meal smells wonderful."   
  
John smiled weakly and resumed his industrious cooking. Now that he was near the end, the pressure on him was easing.   
  
"Dinner is served," called John , determined to fulfil his word to the letter as, with a flourish, he carried in two plates of smoked salmon, with salad garnish, lemon quarters and neat slivers of granary bread.  
  
"What about the chef's hat and pinafore?" Jo asked with an impish smile.  
  
"Forget the uniform," John exclaimed with heartfelt emotion and they sat down to the first course on a candlelit table in a dimly lit room. The sun was setting with a glorious splash of red, bathing them both in a golden glow. When John will have recovered from the physical and nervous strain, it will have been a perfect end to the day if he did but know it.  
  
They sat back, contented with the appetiser until, with a theatrical flourish, John produced two large portions of spaghetti bolognese with a neat sprinkling of parmesan cheese on it with a proud expression on his face. Jo concealed the thought that she had produced meals like that every day and fulsomely congratulated John for his efforts as the taste of the whole meal was exquisite, with strawberries and cream to nicely round it off. Then again, someone else's cooking always is brilliant if it is a rare treat..  
  
"I always keep my word on a promise," John explained emphatically.  
  
The expression on Jo's face was distant at that point when she reflected on some of John's casual affairs of the past but, outside the sexual sphere, John was an upright honest man whom she had long admired for that. She was accustomed to be sharply aware of the peculiar limits of John's dependability but, tonight, nothing seemed to matter, nothing existed outside her house.  
  
"So long as you admit that you aren't always right," Jo replied lightly.  
  
"I promise that I, John Deed, am not akin to the Pope as he is bound by the decree of Papal Infallibility and I am not infallible. Besides," John continued with a wicked grin, "non Popes have more fun."   
  
Jo smiled indulgently as the end of a typical day was completed by John sexually propositioning her, yet again. Will anything change, she asked herself. As the sometime lover, friend and human being was settled down snugly on the sofa next to her, Jo clicked on the TV remote control where brash showbiz music announced the finals of 'Pop Idol' and that, the phonelines are open, it only took a phone call to vote for your idol and , after all, it's your vote that counts.  
  
"Good God, turn that rubbish off," John exclaimed. As someone who was becoming increasingly aware of how much the Sir Ians and the Lawrence Jameses of the world will very discreetly hem in your options if you let them, it wasn't just the manufactured music that appalled him. Voting for Pop Idol and choosing your favourite brand of whatever at the supermarket aren't exactly poles apart. Jo clicked over channels to Panorama and a temporary fault appeared in the sound transmission of Neil Houghton and the Conservative Shadow Minister speaking in reply in what must be a pre recorded television debate.  
  
"They don't look much different from each other, do they?" John Deed observed drily as they snuggled down together that evening while waves of tiredness overtook them. Jo wondered how George was getting on with Neil and even worrying about her, a new experience in her life in the same way that cooking for Jo was for John. They still couldn't believe that the intensity of the two weeks had ended as the phantom train carriage, with them in it, carried on rattling through the night.  
  
Ritchie lay on his bunk. He'd made sure he had everything he wanted, and once sprawled on his bed, he gave the wheelchair a violent shove so that it rolled silently over to the other side of the cell. It was now exactly where he wanted it, out of his line of vision, therefore figuratively out of mind. When he did what he was about to do, he didn't want his last thoughts to be of what he'd become. Even though he still couldn't feel the physical presence of his legs, they were still his legs, still attached to his body and therefore still a part of him. Those legs had once made him able to dance the night away with some nameless but attractive bird, to stand at the bar and buy said bird a drink, and to finally fuck said bird senseless in some nameless bedroom. but he could no longer do any of these things. He couldn't even have a shower or put on his clothes without help from some nameless and often faceless prison officer who were always telling him how they had better things to do. But he didn't want to dwell on all that. He wanted to remember the good times. A lascivious smile crossed his face as he remembered some of the women he'd had in his time. Like Karen Betts, for example, she was one of the best he'd ever had. She'd never given him any of that soppy love stuff that even from Snowball sometimes drove him mad. She'd been as up for it as any woman he'd ever known. But something had been a little out of the ordinary the first time she'd come to him. After the cryptic text message which she'd later told him was a song lyric, they'd exchanged several more, establishing where and when they would meet. The last one he'd sent her had said, "How do you like it?" They could almost have been talking about how she preferred her steak. Her reply had surprised him. Instead of saying something like slow and long, or simply well done, she'd answered him with hard and rough. He didn't really think anything of this at the time. After all, some women did like it rough. But the first time, she really had wanted it rough. After receiving that text message, he had played along with her, but been perfectly ready to do things differently if she'd decided that rough wasn't for her. He'd been slightly nervous of taking her at her word, because Atkins men never raped their women. They may treat them like shit, but they never had to rape a woman. But she'd stood there, cool as you like, and said, "I won't break." He'd made some crack about how the bed might, but she'd fixed him with such a piercing gaze that he realised this meant more to her than just a good screw. He'd virtually thrown her down on the bed and himself on top of her. She'd moved to put her arms round him, but he'd held them down. The look that had passed between them held so many words. He could remember the intensity of it now. Half of its meaning asked, no compelled him to treat her like a whore, and the rest simply begged him not to ask questions. Above all, don't ask questions. So, he had held her down, and taken everything granted to him by that fabulous body of hers. Afterwards, they lay replete, satiated, like a lioness and her mate after feasting on the body of a plump adult rhino. He looked over at her and saw unshed tears in her eyes. It hit him that this went much deeper with her than a simple need to be thoroughly fucked. There was something different here, something wrong. He asked,   
  
"what was all that about?" Her answer had mystified him.   
  
"Just laying a few ghosts, that's all." She'd turned on to her side with her back to him so as to hide her weakness.   
  
At the time, Ritchie had wondered what she'd meant. It was probably this that had provided the misgivings about his continuing to see Karen. But what Snowball wanted, she usually got, and the next few times he saw Karen, she acted perfectly normally. Sure, she knew exactly what she wanted, and didn't mind telling him so, but like he'd said, he loved that in a woman. But when she was up on the stand the first time, and that stupid idiot who backed out of representing him and Snowball had flung a supposedly fake rape allegation at her, everything began to fit in to place. If he'd been asked, he could have told any jury who cared to listen that this was no fake allegation. She'd been getting something out of her system that first time he'd slept with her, no doubt about it. If there was one thing he'd inherited from his mother it was her sensitivity. It wasn't often he used it, but he could if he had too. After all, he would never have got as close to Snowball as he had if he hadn't been able to see right through her porn star persona. He couldn't explain what had drawn him to Snowball. There was something different, intriguing about her. But look where the stupid cow had landed him. He loved her to bits, but that didn't stop him from cursing her for shooting him. As his thoughts drifted over that day, he knew one thing for certain. He couldn't have let Snowball just shoot Karen in cold blood and for no real reason. Even if he had to go back and repeat the events of that day, he knew he wouldn't do anything differently. As he took the first two of the barbiturates he'd managed to buy on the black market with phone cards, he switched on the Discman Yvonne had sent him, knowing only too well how long the prison days could be. Robbie Williams Angels was playing and two things struck Ritchie simultaneously. The first was that he'd been listening to this CD on the last night he'd spent with Karen, and the music brought various images and remembered sounds of that night in to clearer focus. The second thing to raise the head of significance, was that his mother used to call him her little angel. He steadily swallowed the stash of tablets he'd accumulated over the last few weeks, and played the Angels song over and over again. When he could feel the drowsiness gradually creeping over him, he made sure that the two letters he'd written, one to his mother and one to his sister, were safely on the bedside table. As the words of the song gently lulled him in to unconsciousness, he kept seeing snatches of how Karen had looked, sprawled on his bed, flushed from the heat of orgasm, breasts as ripe and firm as two peaches, though far more generous in size. She'd thought he was soppy for liking this song, but it hadn't stopped her from putting her arms round him and laying her head on his chest as the words had washed over them. His last thought before his eyes closed, wasn't of Snowball or anything remotely connected with her, it was a combined image of Karen at her most seductive and his mother at her most loving. As his heartbeat became slower, and the rise and fall of his chest became shallower, the song Ritchie had so loved again reached its end, and having no human finger to set it going again, drifted in to silence, taking with it the life of a man who had once had everything and now had nothing. 


	56. Part Fifty Six

Part Fifty Six   
  
"You go and celebrate your victory with John tonight, Jo. I'm going home and probably going to get drunk with Lover Boy," were George's parting words to Jo , a hard self protective edge to her voice which didn't deceive Jo in the slightest. That's the first time George has actively encouraged me to go after John. Something new is happening here.  
  
George had made no effort in the slightest to hurry away as she knew full well that there was not much to go home to. She trailed slowly down to the car park and sat in the drivers seat and stared into space. By some instinct, she had clutched onto her bundle of court papers which stared back at her with the confusing morass of statements and evidence. These papers were exactly the same as when she had impatiently grabbed them off Brian Cantwell's listless hands when, all fire and energy, she had visited him in his chambers. She had heard what she then thought of as his spineless account of the case, hectored him for not having sufficient force of will and had driven home with all the drive and determination that came natural to her abrasive personality. The papers were exactly the same but she had changed.  
  
She sat in her car, her eyes unfocussed for ages until a snap decision came into her mind. She needed a copy of the Evening Standard to be forearmed for when she got home tonight. In the distance, she spotted the women who had been in the gallery all week who were as far removed from her as if she were watching them on the cinema screen. Karen was the last in line and George smiled generously that at least the trial had come out well for her. She shook her head as she stood and watched the women clatter past and out of view. Must be getting soft in her old age. She bought the copy of the paper and there the headlines were emblazoned. "Porn Film Star and her Lover Jailed for Firebombing Attack." She folded the paper carefully, and headed back to her car to drive home. It was now or never.   
  
"Twenty two years for one of them and ten years for the other." Neil's tight hard voice opened the hostilities after a very perfunctory kiss on the cheek. "Just think what this will cost the British taxpayer to keep them in idleness. You and I pay enough taxes as it is."  
  
Speak for yourself, darling, George thought sarcastically. Only a total prig like you can talk so loudly that way and conveniently forget the blind trusts and tax shelters which do very nicely for you and keep you in the Saville Row suits to which you are accustomed.  
  
"I suppose you are pleased with yourself, George," Neil snapped, "A nice mess you've landed me in."  
  
"Oh, shut up, Neil." George's temper flared. She had planned on being conciliatory and to steer away from the awkward topic of conversation but her good resolutions disappeared in a flash. She'd had a hard week or so in court and was never keen on enduring Neil moaning away about the rigours of his job. Still less was she going to act the submissive woman in a situation like this.  
  
"You'll have to work that extra hard in persuading your Cabinet friends that black is really white. After all, that's what your kind are good at," She added sarcastically.   
  
"You've let me down," Neil sulked from the far side of the Evening Standard. "Just what sort of message is this supposed to send out to the electorate?"  
  
"The truth," George said shortly."I've told you the way the trial has been heading but you wouldn't listen. But don't ask me, I'm only the barrister defending these two criminals. The jury were right…………… and so was John."   
  
"What!" Neil Houghton exclaimed incredulously, putting down his paper. "After all these years when you've called the man every name under the sun, you're now going soft on him."  
  
"Yes, but at least he knows the difference between right and wrong," George said shortly. She had her hard bitch image to maintain and she'd gone quite soft enough in one day, thank you very much. It was one thing for her to knock John but it was quite another thing for Neil to do it.   
  
"I'm going out to the club, George. See you later." Neil stormed out, throwing the paper down on the elegant table and shutting the front door curtly.  
  
George poured herself a generous measure of gin and tonic and sat out on her terrace at the elegant wrought iron table. This was the favourite part of her house where the evening sun shone into her eyes and she could meditate. Neil never liked being there and preferred sitting stiffly upright in his armchair with his newspaper. She smiled a little to herself as she reflected on their recent awkwardness. Typical Neil, she thought. He was like a little boy who, if the game wasn't going his way, stalked off saying 'I'm not playing' and went into a sulk. She could hardly call it a row as such a word conveyed a theatrical outpouring of your emotions and a readiness to take risks, with yourself, with your relationship, with your partner that Neil was utterly incapable of. But not her and not John. At least, in the old days, John would have given her back as much as he got in a fine stand up row. He used to hardly even flinch when a well directed plate whizzed past his left ear. Most satisfying of all was the making up after the row. John was a wonderful lover and the sex was as incandescent and memorable as the arguments. It was that and their love of Charli that had kept them together and it had hurt her beyond any imagination when she could no longer be there for her daughter full time. It was that pain that she wanted to forget and drove her on to solidify that hard artificial shell round her that served her so well in getting on in this material world.   
  
She had never broken anything in her house while Neil was here and that was a bad sign of their relationship, if you could call it one, rather than the good sign as convention had it. When they fell out, Neil was a distant cold presence on the far side of their bed and only days later, by some imperceptible change did Neil become more agreeable.  
  
Where was she going to, the question, unasked, slipped into her mind as she sipped her drink and stared into the setting son. Why, to make a good match in the way that Daddy had always urged his only child to do. This favourite phrase of her actorish barrister father harked back to a Victorian novel which she unthinkingly accepted. The failure of her marriage to John had only increased that desire in her to do better second time around. It was now as she stared round at her elegant surroundings and at her life in general and wondering what this cold stranger was doing in her own house, that she seriously wondered what this stranger who was sipping a gin and tonic was doing in her own life.  
  
Neil Grayling was not having a good week at Larkhall and certainly not today.  
  
In all his years of managerial authority, he could never remember the feeling of his actions being put under the microscope as the day he gave evidence in court. His vanity was wounded by the way two very powerful women pinned him down with relentless questions and the sarcastic crack that " while you are a glittering ornament decorating Larkhall Prison, practically, you are everywhere and at the same time nowhere at all" was the most wounding of anything. He has long been used to obscuring the truth to those above him to suit his purposes but the relentless cross examination made him feel uncomfortably naked and angry. He resolved that the function of court appearances should henceforth be always entrusted to those who are in charge of the nuts and bolts of Larkhall, and not its Grand Designer. Still, outsiders, even know all barristers like these, are never the ones to know what really goes on. He has the finger on the pulse of Larkhall as no one else does. Responsibility stops with him and this is his calling.  
  
The rest of the week wasn't much better as his contacts consisting of Di Barker, Mrs Hollamby and Sir Ian Rochester alike, were all vague and non committal. Surely, someone somewhere would be able to spill the beans. That is how management systems work, to have your reliable spies in position to know the news before anyone else does. But all the 'Old Boys Networks' and lines of authority alike were silent, even the local Masonic lodge. It was all one big frustration as if his favourite boyfriend had become one maddening tease, promising all yet delivering nothing. As for Ms Betts, she paid periodic flying visits to Larkhall and had come and gone before he knew she was in the building.  
  
Today, Grayling had a small portable television plugged in and was flipping channels while pretending to himself that he was looking at a few files. Destiny ticked away the minutes from which he was isolated, unable for once to influence it.  
  
Suddenly a newsflash interrupted the usual horse racing from Cheltenham and he jerked upwards in his chair.  
  
"Today, British justice is decided that two notorious criminals, Ms Tracy Pilkinton, also wanted for murder in the state of Florida and Mr Ritchie Atkins, a member of a notorious East End gangland family, are sentenced to twenty two years and ten years respectively for conspiring together to set off a home made bomb in Larkhall Prison to aid Ms Pilkinton's escape during which one inmate died …………" the 'voice over' announced what, to him was bad news.  
  
"Oh no," groaned Grayling as the first thought that hit him was that the white wan would be speeding down the road to land what should rightly be someone else's problem back on his doorstep.  
  
When the 'voice over' stopped, the TV screen showed a hubbub of comment from a crowd outside the Old Bailey to Grayling's unhearing ears. They had got their two minutes of fame as so many people wanted these days, Grayling thought spitefully. The camera then panned forward to a very familiar woman with long blond hair whose voice in his mind, was turned up to maximum volume. " ……..all press queries should be addressed to the Governing Governor, Neil Grayling. That's GRAYLING. I can give you the phone number of Larkhall Prison and I can promise you that he's the sort of person who is only too willing to communicate with the press……………."   
  
This can't be happening, Grayling thought to himself and it was on the sixth ring that he was aware that the phone was ringing. Nervously, Grayling picked up the phone, expecting some persistent, pushy reporter but, instead, the Area Director himself was on the phone.   
  
"Is that you Grayling?" the terse voice said without preamble."For your information the line is 'an official spokesman is unavailable for comment.' Got that? I know you like to pose and preen before the world's press but not today. Let the press print what they like and, in two weeks time, the whole sorry mess will be publicly forgotten. Except by us. You do know that you've got your annual appraisal on Thursday September 25th at ten sharp. Don't be late." The voice cut off.  
  
A burst of cheering echoed down from what must be G wing as it was evident that the prisoners had heard the news but treated it in a very different manner from Grayling who was preoccupied with his own rather battered reputation taking another knock.  
  
Grayling could remember nothing more of the rest of the day except from saying, time and time again, 'I have no official comment on the matter.' Despite the way the reporters cajoled, harassed and threatened him All this went completely against his nature. He reached into his draw for some double strength headache tablets and reached for a glass of water. But his musings were disturbed by yet another phone call.   
  
"Mr. Grayling, Sir, It's Sylvia Hollandby from G wing."   
  
Karen was sitting in Yvonne's garden with Yvonne, Lauren, Cassie and Roisin. They'd eaten a meal cooked by Cassie and Roisin, and were now working their way down a few bottles of wine. After the adrenaline rush of the end of the trial, they were now all fairly mellow, listening to some soft music and letting some of the tension begin to seep away. Lauren suddenly looked up as if remembering something.   
  
"Mum, where did you go this afternoon?" Yvonne took a drag of her cigarette.   
  
"None of your business," Yvonne said affectionately, knowing that Lauren would think she'd gone soft if she knew her mother had sent a bottle of Champagne to a barrister.   
  
"Little surprise for someone, was it?" Asked Cassie with a wink.   
  
"Jesus," Said Yvonne laughing, "You're as bad as Lauren."   
  
"That's why you love me," Said Cassie, an utterly angelic look on her face.   
  
"Oh, like a kick in the head," Said Roisin drily. Karen was about to add her own opinion when her mobile rang. Digging it out of her handbag which she'd slung on to a spare sun lounger, she was immensely displeased to see the main number for Larkhall on the display.   
  
"Karen Betts," She said, slipping back in to her professional role even though there was a fair amount of alcohol sloshing about in her blood stream.   
  
"Karen, it's Neil Grayling." Karen was irritated, but something, some instinct told her not to reveal his name to those around her.   
  
"What can I do for you?" She asked politely but making it clear that this better be good.   
  
"I'm afraid we have a problem. Snowball Merriman has killed herself."   
  
"What?" Karen felt a surge of blind fury.   
  
"I know, I know," Said Grayling. "Not exactly in the name of justice, is it."   
  
"When did this happen?"   
  
"About half an hour ago. I thought you'd want to be informed, her being on your wing. But that's not all. I've been on the phone to Wormwood Scrubs. It seems Ritchie Atkins has done the same thing." Karen's blood ran cold. Ritchie was dead. Yvonne's son was dead, and Karen knew she had to be the one to tell her. She couldn't speak at first.   
  
"Karen, are you still there?" Neil asked.   
  
"Yes," Karen said, suddenly knowing she was stone cold sober.   
  
"Are you with Yvonne by any chance?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
"I think this might be better coming from you."   
  
"I suppose so."   
  
"And as Merriman's wing governor, we need you to formally identify her."   
  
"I'll be there when I can." Karen switched off the phone before Grayling could make any more demands of her.   
  
"Sweetheart, you've gone white, what's happened?" Asked Roisin gently. Karen simply stared back at her, at them all, but her gaze focussed mostly on Lauren and Yvonne. How the hell did she break the news to them that Ritchie had killed himself. When she was a nurse, and to a certain extent in her capacity as wing governor, breaking the news of a death to unsuspecting relatives was occasionally part of her job, and as a part of her job she could detach herself from it. She would be polite, sympathetic but still removed in some way from the immediate reactions of a grief stricken partner or parent. But this was different. Karen was far too closely connected with Yvonne and by extension Lauren to remain professionally aloof about this. It hit her in an instant that for the first time in her life, she was utterly stuck for words. She didn't appear to have the ability to verbalise this shocking fact. Her gaze seemed to be irrevocably drawn to Yvonne's, perhaps by the intensity in the other woman's eyes. Yvonne was holding a wineglass in one hand, suspended in mid air as if time itself had come to a standstill.   
  
"Tell me," Said Yvonne, and even though her voice was gentle, it invited no argument. Karen took a deep breath.   
  
"Ritchie died about half an hour ago." With anyone else, Karen might have tried to soften the blow, but with Yvonne she knew this was futile. Yvonne, and Lauren for that matter, would have seen straight through her.   
  
"How?" Asked Lauren. Karen's gaze moved to Lauren, who looked furious.   
  
"Other than that he killed himself, I don't know," Replied Karen softly.   
  
"Forgive me for being thick," Said Lauren, "But why did you get the call and not mum?"   
  
"Because Ritchie wasn't the only one to take that way out this evening."   
  
"You mean Snowball?" Asked Cassie, her anger also beginning to rise.   
  
"Yes." The splintering of glass brought all of their eyes back on Yvonne. The glass she'd been holding had shattered under the pressure of her squeezing hand, but she made no sound. Even as Karen reached for a serviette, she could see the blood running down on to the table cloth. Grabbing Yvonne's wrist and turning her hand palm up, Karen could see tiny fragments of glass embedded in the bleeding skin.   
  
"Jesus, mum," Said Lauren, "Are you all right?" Karen held the serviette gently against the wound, though not applying too much pressure because of the glass in Yvonne's hand.   
  
"Lauren, do you have anything resembling a first aid kit in this house?" She asked, knowing that this at least she could do something about.   
  
"There's one in the kitchen." Roisin went to fetch it.   
  
"Yvonne, I need to get the glass out of your hand, and I need to do that in a bit more light." Yvonne didn't respond. Wrapping the serviette around Yvonne's hand and keeping it held between her own, Karen led Yvonne back to the house and in to the kitchen. As she persuaded her in to a chair at the kitchen table, Karen turned Yvonne's face towards her. It scared her to see the totally blank expression on Yvonne's face.   
  
"Sweetheart, look at me," She pleaded, wanting some kind of recognition from Yvonne to show she was still there with them. Yvonne gradually focussed her gaze on Karen, but still didn't speak. Rifling through the contents of the first aid kit that Roisin had unearthed, Karen was slightly astounded to see various things that no ordinary person would keep for simple domestic emergencies. She held up the type of needle and thread that she hadn't seen since her nursing days. At her raised eyebrow, Lauren remarked,   
  
"What do you expect. We do illegal things which occasionally result in illegal injuries in this house." Not wanting any more details, Karen picked up the tweezers and wiped them with one of the sterile alcohol wipes.   
  
"Yvonne, this is going to hurt." As Karen delicately extracted the tiny slivers of glass from Yvonne's hand with the tweezers, she was dimly aware of Lauren going away and returning with a bottle, a glass and searching in the fridge for orange juice.   
  
"Did you used to be a nurse or something?" Asked Roisin, watching Karen's precise movements.   
  
"Yes," Was Karen's unequivocal answer. Yvonne didn't even flinch whilst the glass was being removed, nor when Karen cleaned her palm with alcohol wipes, though Karen found herself ludicrously tempted to simply dunk Yvonne's hand in Lauren's glass of vodka. There were three quite deep gashes on Yvonne's hand which Karen knew would not heal up by themselves. Karen picked up the human sewing kit and looked at it contemplatively, her gaze straying back and forth to Yvonne's hand which still rested in one of her own. Roisin, whose head again seemed to be the clearest in a crisis said,   
  
"Could you stitch her up?" Lauren laughed mirthlessly.   
  
"She already did that," Was her unemphatic comment. Karen ignored her, needing to keep her mind resolutely on the job.   
  
"It's years since I did anything like this," Said Karen, not wanting to hurt Yvonne more than necessary.   
  
"And casualty on a Friday night is exactly what mum doesn't need," Put in Lauren.   
  
"I'm perfectly well aware of that," Replied Karen, her patience with Lauren fading fast. She rummaged through the first aid box, looking for anything that remotely resembled local anaesthetic. Finding a prepackaged, sterile syringe of Novacain complete with needle, Karen reflected that never again would she be surprised by anything she saw within the walls of this house.   
  
"Jesus, you certainly do keep a stash," commented Cassie, fervently hoping that the sight of this wouldn't reignite Roisin's interest in other more lethal drugs. As Karen began reading the instructions on the packet, Yvonne's left hand came up and removed it. Yvonne put the end to her physical pain aside and gestured to Karen to stitch her up without it. Karen stared at her, but saw something in Yvonne's face which told her that she needed the physical pain to attempt to take her away from the emotional.   
  
"Are you absolutely sure?" Asked Karen gently, knowing just how much this was going to hurt. All she received from Yvonne was a small nod. At least she's communicating with me, thought Karen. She opened the sterile needle and threaded it with a length of incredibly fine twine which brought back numerous memories from her nursing days. Needle poised, she approached Yvonne's palm with something like trepidation. What if she got this wrong, what if her memories of thirteen years ago weren't enough. At the first introduction of the needle in to her wounded flesh, Yvonne's hand jerked. Karen stopped what she was doing and looked Yvonne full in the face.   
  
"Sure you want the pain?" She asked, "Because it's going to get much worse than that." At Yvonne's affirmative nod, she said, "Okay, but Roisin is going to have to hold your arm still for me and if you change your mind, just let me know." Roisin moved round the table and held Yvonne's arm flat to the wood. Cassie watched with a kind of sick fascination as Karen slowly but deftly sewed up the three gashes in Yvonne's hand. Apart from being aware of the clink of bottle on glass as Lauren continued drinking, Karen's whole mind was focussed on her task. She felt every flinch from Yvonne. Roisin was as good as her word and Yvonne's reflexive reaction didn't jeopardise what Karen was doing, but every shudder was felt all the same. When Karen tied off the final stitch, and covered Yvonne's hand with a thin gauze bandage, both Cassie and Roisin stared at her with a new level of respect. Karen tidied away the paraphenalia of her craft, and finally laid a hand on Yvonne's shoulder to get her attention. Looking in to Yvonne's face, Karen was still concerned at her lack of speech.   
  
"Yvonne, you know that I've got to go in to Larkhall. I won't be there any longer than necessary, and I promise I'll be back as soon as possible. Will you be okay till I get back?" Yvonne's left hand, the one not covered by a bandage, came up and briefly rested against Karen's cheek. As Karen walked out in to the hall, Cassie got up and followed her.   
  
"Be careful," Said Cassie. "You've been drinking."   
  
"I'll be okay," Replied Karen. "I feel more sober than I think I've ever felt in my life."   
  
"You did brilliantly back there," Said Cassie in awe. Karen walked out in to the garden to collect her handbag, Cassie following her.   
  
"Like I said, it used to be my job. But no, I wasn't expecting to have to do something like that tonight."   
  
"How could he do this to her?" Asked Cassie, the tears for Yvonne evident in her voice.   
  
"I don't know," Said Karen softly. "But she's going to need us all." 


	57. Part Fifty Seven

Part Fifty Seven   
  
As Karen drove towards the prison, she felt like she was being torn in two. The wing governor half of her knew that she had to go in to Larkhall to sort out the ramifications of any suicide on her wing. But the woman, the human part of her knew she ought to have stayed with Yvonne. She hadn't spoken since she'd been told that her only son had killed himself, and Karen was all too aware how quickly this kind of mental shock could turn in to physical shock if left unwatched. When Yvonne had cut herself by squeezing the wineglass so hard that it had smashed, she hadn't uttered a sound. Even when Karen had extracted the tiny slivers of cut glass from Yvonne's hand with a pair of tweezers, she'd barely flinched. Lauren's answer had simply been to unearth a new bottle of vodka and settle down, almost as if she intended on drinking the lot. Karen left her car at a slight angle and jogged towards the gate lodge.   
  
"I suppose you're here about Snowball Merriman," Said Ken, taking his time finding her keys. She met up with Grayling as she walked towards G wing.   
  
"Thanks for coming in so quickly, Karen," He said, leading her towards the part of the hospital wing where Snowball had been taken.   
  
"I thought she was supposed to be on suicide watch," Said Karen, taking out her anger on Neil.   
  
"It seems Mrs. Hollandby has some explaining to do," Was Neil's reply. Then slowing his pace slightly he said, "How's Yvonne?"   
  
"Yeah, well, that's precisely where I should be now," Replied Karen, not caring who heard her. "She's in total shock, how would you expect a mother to feel on finding out her son's just killed himself." Neil made no comment. They rounded a corner and came to the room where the nurses and Dr. Nicholson had tried to save Snowball's life. She lay on the bed, loosely covered from head to toe by a thin cotton sheet. Karen twitched back the sheet and took a brief glance.   
  
"For identification purposes," She said, "It's definitely her." This was a formality, but one which had to be gone through. Before replacing the sheet, Karen took her last look at the woman who'd caused so much death and destruction in such a short time. Even in death, she wore a soft, smug smile, as if she really had achieved all she'd intended. Karen let the sheet drop back over Snowball's face, briefly wondering if this self-satisfied tart had left anything else in her wake besides anger, and a feeling of justice not quite having been served.   
  
After locking Snowball's cell and taping it, "No Entry", and telling Neil she would deal with any of Snowball's personal effects on Monday, Karen walked smartly to the officers' room to find Sylvia brewing a cup of tea. Karen stalked in to the room and seeing that nobody else was in sight, closed the door. Sylvia turned to face her.   
  
"It wasn't my fault. I was about to check on Merriman like I've been doing every fifteen minutes since she was brought back from court, but Al McKenzy started a fight with one of the new ones and it took a good quarter of an hour to get them separated and down the block." Karen couldn't believe what she was hearing.   
  
"You were the senior officer on duty, Sylvia, making sure that Snowball Merriman was kept on fifteen minute watch was your responsibility."   
  
"Well, what was I supposed to do?" Asked Sylvia, now also getting angry. "There was only me and two others here. You know what it's like on a Friday night, you can't get staff for love nor money." Karen suddenly realised that she could be doing this another time.   
  
"Look, Sylvia," She said, calming down slightly. "I haven't got time to hear all this now. Come and see me first thing on Monday morning, and you'd better have times, dates and documented reasons to support your defense, or you'll be picking up your P45." Leaving Sylvia mouthing like a fish out of water, Karen walked back out to her car. The likes of Sylvia Hollandby were not her highest priority right now. Cursing the late Friday night traffic, mostly generated by people moving from closing pubs to nightclubs, she sat at red light after red light, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. Traffic jams were like men, she decided. There was never one around when you needed one, but when you loathed the very thought of them, they kept getting in your way.   
  
Pulling in to Yvonne's drive, she knew someone must have heard her car, because Roisin was standing by the open front door. She looked almost relieved to see Karen had returned.   
  
"How're you doing?" Asked Karen, following Roisin in to the house.   
  
"Oh, don't worry about us," Said Roisin, "It's Yvonne and Lauren I'm worried about. Yvonne's gone to bed, still without saying a bloody word, and Lauren's getting gradually more drunk by the minute." Then, as if remembering where Karen had been, she asked, "How's everything at Larkhall?"   
  
"Don't ask," Was Karen's unemphatic comment. They walked in to the kitchen, to see Lauren and Cassie sat at the table, Lauren certainly the worse for where, being watched over by a very concerned Cassie. Karen walked round the table to get a better look at Lauren. There were tears running down her cheeks, and she wasn't making any attempt to wipe them.   
  
"How could he do this to her?" Lauren said, her words ever so slightly slurred. "How could my complete wanker of a brother do that to his own mother." Then she caught sight of Karen, and the look in her eyes turned to blind fury. "What are you doing here?" She asked. Both Cassie and Roisin were about to try and soften her words but Karen got there first.   
  
"I've come back to see how you and your mum are doing," She said quietly. Lauren laughed mirthlessly.   
  
"We don't need you," She said, the venom dripping from every word. "I don't need you, and mum certainly doesn't need you. If that tart Merriman had shot you instead, like she wanted to, we wouldn't be here now and mum wouldn't be going through the worst thing she's ever had to deal with in her life."   
  
"Lauren," Cassie said tentatively, not wanting her to go any further with this line of punishment, but Lauren ignored her.   
  
"If Ritchie had been able to walk," She went on, pouring herself another glass of vodka with only a fraction of a taste of orange juice. "He'd have done his time, got out and moved on. He'd never have killed himself if he'd had anything left. But his trying to save your miserable, pathetic life took that away from him."   
  
"Lauren, give it a rest," Said Cassie sharply, seeing the stunned expression on Karen's face. But lauren was on to something now, and like a dog with a rabbit, she'd resolved to shake it to death.   
  
"So you see," She went on, pinning Karen to the spot with eyes that burned with pure hatred. "You are the reason my brother chose to take the coward's way out, you're the reason why mum is lying upstairs in total shock, not speaking to anyone." Karen couldn't speak. Is this really what Lauren, what Yvonne thought? If so, she really shouldn't be here. "Jesus," Said Lauren getting unsteadily to her feet. "You can't even have the decency to say one word in your defense, can you." When she lifted her right hand to strike Karen across the face, Karen reacted with lightening reflexes and gripped Lauren's wrist. Roisin, who had still been standing, moved swiftly forward and grabbed Lauren's other arm to stop her trying again.   
  
"I wouldn't," Said Karen, in that firm, not to be fucked about with tone that both Cassie and Roisin remembered so well. Dropping Lauren's wrist, Karen moved towards the Dorr. Lauren had begun to sob and Roisin stood and held her close. Cassie stood up and followed Karen in to the hall.   
  
"Where are you going?" Cassie asked. Karen turned to face her, the tears in her eyes only just prevented from spilling.   
  
"I'd have thought that was obvious," She said quietly.   
  
"Don't listen to lauren," Said Cassie following the direction of Karen's thoughts. "She's more pissed than I've ever seen her."   
  
"Is that really what Yvonne thinks of me?" Asked Karen in a high, strangled voice.   
  
"Let's face it," Said Cassie softly, "Nobody knows how Yvonne feels about anything. She hasn't spoken a word to anyone since you told her."   
  
"I should go," Said Karen, one tear escaping and being furiously wiped away by the back of her hand. Cassie moved forward and gave her a hug.   
  
"I never thought I'd say this of a screw and an ex-con," She said, "But Yvonne needs you. She needs you now more than I think she's ever needed anyone, probably more than she knows it herself." Karen returned the hug, seeming to take some of Cassie's strength to replenish her own depleted stores.   
  
As Karen softly opened Yvonne's bedroom door, she could see a lamp, giving off a gentle glow on what Karen found herself thinking of as her side of the bed. This was as clear a sign that Yvonne could have left to say she needed her and hoped she'd come back. Yvonne was lying on her side, facing the door, but her eyes were tightly shut. Karen wasn't all that sure they had been, but if Yvonne still didn't want to talk, this was as good a way of any of saying so. Karen closed the door, as if trying to keep out all the things Lauren had said to her downstairs. She quickly and silently undressed, putting on the piece of black silk she'd worn last Saturday night, which had been left clean and folded on a chair as if waiting for her. Last Saturday night seemed so far away now. Had they really been so happy? It seemed almost unbelievable. She slipped in to bed and gently put her arms round Yvonne from behind. No words needed to be said. Karen knew Yvonne wasn't asleep. The tension was coming off her like heat. She found Yvonne's left hand, the one not covered by a small dressing, and began chafing it between her own. Yvonne was freezing. Knowing this to be a further sign of mental and physical shock, Karen knew she couldn't go to sleep. She had to keep an eye on Yvonne, for one thing to make sure she didn't get any colder. She left the lamp on, knowing that Yvonne might prefer to have a little light, because darkness only intensifies the swiftly flowing current of the soul's unchartered waters. Karen didn't know how long she lay like that, almost seeming to wrap her slightly longer frame around Yvonne to keep her warm. It felt like hours, and maybe it was. At one point she heard Cassie and Roisin making their way up the stairs, clearly bringing Lauren to bed.   
  
After Karen had gone up to Yvonne, Lauren had simply cried herself out. Roisin had taken her in to the lounge, sat with her on the sofa and held her while sobs wracked her entire body. Cassie had brewed some coffee and forced Lauren to drink it. Then, when she'd eventually calmed down, they persuaded her she ought to go to bed. Lauren briefly spared a thought to wonder how Yvonne was doing, but Cassie managed to persuade her that Yvonne was being well looked after. When Cassie left them to lock up, Trigger came and laid his head on lauren's knee.   
  
"He always knows," Said lauren, scratching his ears. "They always know when something's wrong." He followed the three of them when they went upstairs. Lauren was faintly surprised when both Cassie and Roisin joined her in her large double bed, one on each side of her.   
  
"I think you need company tonight," Said Cassie, putting her arms round lauren who had turned on her side.   
  
"We'll always be here for you," Said Roisin, putting her arms round Lauren from behind. Never before had lauren felt so safe, so comforted. As she lay in two pairs of warm arms, and slowly drifted off to sleep, she knew that if this was all she ever had from these two women who had come in to her life, really by way of her mother, it would do her just fine. She knew she couldn't have got through tonight without them.   
  
"I'm sorry," She murmured.   
  
"What for?" Asked Roisin sleepily.   
  
"For being such a cow. Mum'll kill me when she finds out what I said to Karen."   
  
"I doubt Karen's stupid enough to tell her," Mumbled Cassie. Lauren vehemently hoped this was true.   
  
Despite her best efforts, Karen could feel her eyes gradually closing. She forced them to stay open, because she knew Yvonne still hadn't gone to sleep. As time passed, she managed to push all irrelevant thoughts from her brain, nothing mattered but Yvonne. when Karen was beginning to think that she really couldn't keep her eyes open any longer, she felt Yvonne's body begin to shake, and knew that the numbness had finally given way to tears. At first, Yvonne made no sound as she cried, though Karen could feel every shudder of her ribcage.   
  
"Turn over," She gently said to Yvonne, and when her request was obeyed, she could see all the pain reflected in Yvonne's eyes. Karen simply held her through this outpouring of grief.   
  
"Talk to me," Karen said softly. Yvonne seemed to have needed permission to say all the feelings that were tearing her heart to shreds.   
  
"He was my baby," She said in such a primeavlely heart-rending voice that it brought the tears to Karen's eyes.   
  
"I know," Karen said, almost able to see the blood pouring from Yvonne's wounded spirit.   
  
"He was my first born baby," Yvonne continued, "No matter what he did, he was still my baby." The pain Yvonne was feeling cut deep in to Karen, and she found her tears joining Yvonne's. "Why did he have to do it?" Asked yvonne. "I could have stopped him doing this."   
  
"No, you couldn't," Said Karen vehemently. "There was absolutely nothing you could have done."   
  
"I should have known," Said Yvonne, "He was my son, I should have known him well enough to at the very least wonder if he might do this."   
  
"Yvonne, this isn't your fault," Said Karen, not liking the direction Yvonne's thoughts were taking.   
  
"Yes, it is," Said Yvonne deprecatingly. "If I'd even once stood up to Charlie, Ritchie wouldn't have had to go away, and he wouldn't have got mixed up with that tart Merriman."   
  
"Yvonne, you can't blame yourself for this, because that won't help anyone, not you, not Lauren and not Ritchie. Killing yourself, it's like having the last word, the final fuck you. That doesn't mean any one person was to blame, it just means that it was Ritchie's way of getting out in the only way he could." Karen continued to cradle Yvonne as her crying slowly ceased. Karen thought briefly of what Lauren had said to her earlier, and knew that this is what really signified how different Yvonne was from her Atkins name. It had been Yvonne's response to blame herself for Ritchie's suicide, but for Lauren, who was undoubtedly an Atkins, it'd been her way to look for someone else to blame. Ritchie had been like that, and Karen suspected Charlie had too. Both Ritchie and Lauren had looked for someone else to take the responsibility for the pain they felt, but Yvonne who no more had the blood of an Atkins than Karen herself did, had looked to her own part in what she was now suffering. As Yvonne slipped in to an exhausted, troubled sleep, Karen spared a thought to wonder if Lauren really had been right. Karen had given no thought to her brief liaison with Ritchie, other than that it was her first step on the road to recovery from Fenner. But had she taken more care, been more vigilant to the insidious way Ritchie had crept in under her professional and emotional guard, he might not have been serving time and therefore might not have taken such a desperate course of action. 


	58. Part Fifty Eight

Part Fifty Eight   
  
One of Jo's eyes opened a fraction and let the sunlight of the morning mix in with that sleepy satiated feeling that a night of lovemaking with John always left her feeling, in a tangle of quilts. It was a glorious Saturday after a fortnight of one of the most gruelling trials she had undertaken that called out for a lazy morning in bed. It was at times like these that she was tempted by the dreamy prospect of a lifetime with John before the more rational side of her took herself to task about this. On a morning like this, she told herself, she oughtn't to plan too far ahead but just savour the moment.  
  
Presently, the squeaky mechanical sound of the spring on the brass letter box being forced back announced to her that either the morning post or the Guardian was being forced through the letter box to flop onto the mat.  
  
"Is that the paper, Jo?" John's sleepy mumble emerged out of the duvet. "You'd better fetch it."  
  
Smiling to herself, Jo popped a thin silk dressing gown on though not before John's one eye had the brief early morning delight of a naked Jo. Typical John, trying to compensate by being masterful after his nervous debut as a chef last night.  
  
The soft white stair carpet greeted her bare feet and she picked up the bundle of papers, colour supplement and adverts and, sleepily, cast a casual gaze at it. The headlines,   
  
"Imprisoned Firebombers Commit Suicide" screamed out at Jo's unbelieving eyes as she grasped at the main paper, letting the rest slide sideways on to the carpet. "Last night, Ms Pilkinton was found dead in her cell at Larkhall Prison after slashing her wrist with a razor blade and at Wormwood Scrubs, her lover Mr Ritchie Atkins was found dead from an overdose of sleeping tablets. Only yesterday, they were both sentenced for their joint involvement with setting off a firebomb at Larkhall Prison to cover her escape from the prison. Preliminary investigation has ruled out foul play…….."  
  
"John," Jo called, "Come downstairs and look at the papers."   
  
If it wasn't for the unnatural edge to Jo's voice, John would have played deaf and curled up in bed. This time, he slipped on his trousers and popped his shirt on , which was left unbuttoned, and stumbled sleepily downstairs. The way the colour had drained from Jo's face woke up his senses straightaway.  
  
John grabbed the paper and his features were frozen in shock. He could not even begin to   
  
explore what a turmoil of feelings that were churning round in him. A casual observer might have thought that in real, personal situations that came emotionally close to him, he was simply unfeeling but Jo sensed that this was his way of grappling with a situation that was too big for words.  
  
" I remember Yvonne Atkins saying to me with a peculiar expression in her eye, 'There's things Ritchie needs to hear from me and I think this might be my last chance to put things right.' It's almost like she knew what was going to happen," Jo said at last in a choked voice.  
  
John instantly put his arms round Jo and she buried her face in his shoulder. John was insightful and sensitive to realise when Jo simply wanted the decencies of human comfort. He wanted quite as much to be held by Jo, partly because of their common experiences in the case. Mysteriously, the strong August sunshine bathed the mourners in strong sunshine and warmth, unaffected by the news though the warmth and cosiness of Jo's house did its best to comfort them.  
  
"I'd like to phone someone, anyone, I'm not sure what to say except that our thoughts go out to them," John mumbled into Jo's dishevelled hair. "We ought to do something."  
  
"I don't know who I feel sorry for, not Ritchie Atkins saying that 'she ain't my mother' when she wanted to speak to her but he was under the thumb of Snowball Merriman. It's just something too horrible for words."  
  
The fractured shards of John's everyday thinking latched on to the fact that their joint suicide was no coincidence, that while they were together day after day in the dock, they had the opportunity to plan this whole thing. Someone like Ms Pilkinton, so John named her to place her in the category of proven criminal, who planned the explosion so deviously would have the perverted sick scheming mind to plan their joint suicide. But why?  
  
"I can't understand this one, Jo," John said haltingly, feeling his way for his thoughts and emotions, let alone words. "I couldn't imagine abandoning, say Charlie, in this way or would she do the same to me. Not someone I hold dear however suicidal I might feel."   
  
Jo nodded into John's shoulder. The way John picked out Charlie, not her, was his way of reacting, of imagining himself in Yvonne's shoes as a parent. "I feel the same about tom and Mark," Jo said softly at which John nodded in understanding.  
  
"You must phone George," Jo said with more of her usual confidence. "She'll feel the same as us, much though a part of me still hates to feel that I have anything in common with her except you." Jo finished where the trace of her old attitudes to George was overlain by the recent feelings of somehow being on the same side.  
  
John raised his eyebrows at this strange suggestion but, at such an emotional moment, far be it from him to deny her suggestion.  
  
Neil Houghton was the first to grab the paper at George's house. He was properly dressed in his suit in the house where everything was neat and in mechanical order. He liked everything that way and, of course, George had to fit in with his ways. He looked at the paper and tut tutted to himself as he read the story.  
  
"Hey George.Those two people that you defended have just topped themselves. That means that the Atkins Pilkinton problem won't fade away as is right and proper but there will be more sensational headlines. Still, it could be worse. Dead people can't tell tales to the News of the World. The scandal would have died a natural death anyway," muttered Neil contemptuously. "Still, I suppose that it has saved the British taxpayer a million pounds or so."  
  
"But won't it be more bad publicity?" George's mouth moved on automatic pilot not taking in what she was hearing.  
  
"It's a Home Office Problem, not mine," Neil commented curtly as he resumed reading the financial section of the Daily Telegraph.  
  
There's no honour among thieves, George thought in a blinding moment of fury, and far less in Cabinet Ministers. Something seemed to snap in George that cut herself off irrevocably from Neil as she turned to brush violently at her blond hair. Neil, of course, looked out of the corner of his eye to see George doing her usual routine to get herself ready for the day. Today was just like any other day with the chance that the disagreeable events of the past weeks will fade behind him. Every Cabinet minister goes through a rocky patch these days and survives. Even if it is a resignation matter, some ministers come back from the cold given time. By contrast, George had the presentiment that sooner or later she would resign as Neil Houghton's consort and, if she ever did, she would not come back.  
  
"Is Lover Boy there?" John asked George on the phone.  
  
George took the cordless phone into the kitchen while Neil was busying himself with his cabinet papers and was oblivious to anything.  
  
"Not so that anyone would notice," George's aristocratic drawl dismissed him contemptuously. That told John exactly how matters stood between George and that drip she'd landed herself with.  
  
"You've seen today's headlines?" John asked tentatively. "I know that it sounds feeble but I wanted to phone you and to say that however badly you may be feeling about this, Jo and I feel the same." John finished with a shaky laugh that was half a self reproach for the total inadequacy of the lines.  
  
"Why John," George's upper class drawl, infused with the warmth of feelings she denied to herself and to others. "It's nice of you to phone. And, for once, thank Jo for getting you to."  
  
"How the devil did you guess that, George?" John asked in a puzzled tone.  
  
"I know you of old, John darling," George's teasing tones curled their way down the telephone wires to John. "Still it's nice of you to phone. It's nice to hear a human voice." George ended, speaking in a voice that John had never heard before. George lit a cigarette and took a deep drag.   
  
"All Neil can talk about is what this will now save the bloody tax payer," Said George scornfully.   
  
"I wonder that you expected any different," Replied John. Neil appeared looking for more coffee.   
  
"Do you have to do that?" He said, gesturing at George's cigarette.   
  
"Might I remind you that this is my house," Replied George, her gaze swivelling to burn in to Neil's. "Look, I've got to go," She said to John, "The lord and master is for once demanding my input in to a conversation." As she switched off the phone Neil said,   
  
"Who was that on the phone, George?"   
  
"Only John," George's large eyes swivelled round in his direction, her smile wiped from her face in an instant.  
  
"Why was he phoning, George? To gloat at us because he won?" Neil pursued, operating on his own agenda.  
  
"No, Neil." George replied coldly."And talking of phoning, I was wondering if you wanted to come with me to visit Daddy. I get worried about him. He gets lonely sometimes."  
  
"He calls round on Wednesdays. Isn't that enough of a family duty?" Neil replied curtly. His day was already mapped out and spending his time listening to superannuated old fogeys like him droning on did not strike him as a very productive use of his busy time. Sometimes, he felt that George did not really understand how demanding his job was despite his many efforts to explain patiently to her. A crisis could blow up at 2 in the morning whereas George's job was demanding in its way but once she had done her work, she could forget about everything.  
  
"Just for once," urged George, hoping against hope that he would say no.  
  
"I'm sorry, I can't make it," Neil said shortly."Another time, maybe," He added insincerely.  
  
George concealed her broad smile and with a sad face promised to pass on his best wishes to Daddy. It gave her an excellent chance to get out of the house even if it was hers anyway.  
  
On the other end of the phone, John smiled to himself, being better able to handle the topsy turvy world he was entering where George insisted that he thank Jo for getting him to phone. Before, the most George would have thanked her for was giving her a bad cold and that said with her most barbed sarcasm.  
  
"Well, it looks like George and Lover Boy won't remain an item for much longer. I think it's a case of 'all gong and no dinner' in their relationship, if you could call it one, Jo." John replied smugly. And on a more serious note. "I feel sorry for her as she feels the same about this ghastly matter and hasn't anyone where she is to share her feelings with."  
  
Jo's feelings of sympathy were mixed as she had reservations about a footloose and fancy free George on the loose as much as she had more of a kinship with her than she had ever had with her. She realised that this was why, deep down , she had always clashed with George in the past. 


	59. Part Fifty Nine

Part Fifty Nine   
  
On the Saturday morning, Cassie was woken by the sound of the phone from downstairs. When it looked like nobody else was going to answer it, she dragged herself out of bed and ran down to the kitchen where the cordless phone sat leering at her on the table amongst the surplus of empty glasses, ashtrays and cigarette packets of last night's vigil. When Cassie answered, she was treated to the tones of some bloke saying that he was the governor of HMP Wormwood Scrubs, and could he possibly speak to Mrs. Atkins.   
  
"I'm sorry," Said Cassie, "But it isn't really a good time right now."   
  
"It's about her son," Said this faceless individual. "We need a next of kin to come and identify the body."   
  
"You don't believe in giving time for the news to settle in, do you," Said Cassie.   
  
"I'm sorry," Said the governor, to Cassie's surprise really sounding it. "But the quicker we can get him officially identified, the quicker we can do the postmortem."   
  
"Does it absolutely have to be a next of kin?" Asked Cassie, wanting to spare Yvonne as much as possible.   
  
"Where we know one exists," Said Governor Bailey, "I'm afraid so."   
  
"Okay, I'll tell her."   
  
"It doesn't need to be immediately, it can be any time today."   
  
Hating what she had to do, Cassie hung up and walked up the stairs. The clock in the hall was just chiming nine o'clock. She gently knocked on Yvonne's bedroom door, and on getting no answer pushed it open. Feeling for the light switch just inside the door, she turned on the dimmer to its lowest setting. As the light was still relatively soft, Karen and Yvonne remained dead to the world. Cassie took a moment to reflect on how complete, how right they looked. Walking over to the bed, she gently shook Yvonne's shoulder. As Yvonne turned over and in so doing disturbed Karen, Cassie said,   
  
"Sorry to have to wake you, but there's just been a phone call you should know about." Yvonne rubbed the sleep from her eyes.   
  
"Who was it?"   
  
"The governor of Wormwood Scrubs," Said Cassie, feeling like she was about to bring all the necessities of an unexplained death down on Yvonne's head.   
  
"He didn't hang about," commented Karen, squinting up at Cassie, sleepily realising why this phone call would have been made.   
  
"What did he want?" Asked Yvonne, but thinking she already knew.   
  
"He wants you to go and identify Ritchie's body, some time today." Yvonne took a couple of minutes to mull this one over.   
  
"Okay," She simply said. Cassie perched on the side of the bed and took one of Yvonne's hands.   
  
"I'm so sorry," Said Cassie, brief tears in her eyes.   
  
"I know," Said Yvonne, giving her hand a squeeze, feeling like she'd cried herself out the night before. "Is Lauren all right?" She asked.   
  
"She's still asleep," Said Cassie trying to bring her voice back under control. "She drank enough to float the QE2 last night, but she'll be okay."   
  
"I'm sorry I left you to look after her," Said Yvonne.   
  
"Hey, that's what mates are for. You concentrate on whatever you've got to do today, and leave Lauren to us. She'll probably spend today sleeping off the mother of all hangovers." Cassie realised she was babbling. She leaned forward and gave Yvonne a quick awkward hug. "We're all here for you, you know," Was all she said before going out of the room. Yvonne turned to Karen who simply held her, not really knowing what to say or do. After a while, she said,   
  
"Do you want me to come with you?"   
  
"Is that okay?" Asked Yvonne.   
  
"I wouldn't have asked if it wasn't," Said Karen gently.   
  
A while later, they were driving, in Karen's car, towards HMP Wormwood Scrubs. Lighting a cigarette, Yvonne asked,   
  
"do you know the governor?"   
  
"Only slightly," Replied Karen keeping her eyes on the road. "I've spoken to him at the odd conference here and there," She elaborated. Yvonne was quiet for a few minutes.   
  
"What is actually involved in identifying a body?" She asked and Karen could hear the panic in her voice. She took Yvonne's hand but still kept her eyes on the road.   
  
"You'll just see his face," Said Karen gently, trying to calm Yvonne down. "And all you'll be asked to do is to confirm that it is or isn't Ritchie." At Yvonne's continued silence, Karen asked, "Are you sure you want to do this now? We can always come back."   
  
"No," Said Yvonne, sounding slightly more resolved to the situation, "The longer I leave it, the harder it'll be."   
  
"Actually," Said Karen, turning in to Du Cane road, "I think seeing Ritchie is something you need to do, to verify that this is real."   
  
"Maybe," Replied Yvonne. They pulled in to the visitor's car park and Yvonne said, "Do you mind waiting here for me?"   
  
"Of course not," Said Karen, knowing that this was something Yvonne probably needed to do on her own.   
  
As she was shown down the endless stream of dull, gray corridors, Yvonne barely took in anything. The brief glimpses she was given of male inmates involved in various pastimes hardly made an impression on her. Governor Bailey showed her in to the small prison mortuary. This wasn't real, she kept telling herself. Any minute now, someone would tell her this was all a mistake. But when she laid eyes on Ritchie's cold, lifeless form, she couldn't doubt it any longer. She gazed at his soft, slightly child-like face. In spite of all the bad things he had done, he still had the cheeky, winning features that had always got round her when he was little. In court, the last time she'd seen him, he'd looked cold, angry, as if he'd really expected to get off. But in death, he looked innocent again, like he'd never known any of the things his mother and father had taught him over the years. A lonely tear ran down her cheek for the loss of her first born baby. Even after everything he'd done to her, she'd have taken away every last painful word or feeling if it would have stopped him from taking that desperate way out. But feeling such a thing was futile now. Ritchie was dead, gone from her, and never again would she be able to hold him, and be the mother she ought to have been.   
  
After formally identifying Ritchie's body, Yvonne followed the governor to his office.   
  
"Do you have any idea how this happened?" Asked Yvonne.   
  
"That's hopefully what the postmortem will tell us," Replied the governor. "But we think he overdosed on something." Yvonne knew better than to ask how an inmate had managed to get hold of any harmful drug inside, she knew enough about that from her time at Larkhall. The governor handed her a prison issue plastic bag clearly full of Ritchie's belongings. Yvonne briefly glanced inside to see a jumble of clothes, plus the discman she'd sent him. This had been the only thing Ritchie had ever asked her for during the last few months whilst he'd been on remand, this and a number of CD's.   
  
"He was listening to music when he died," Said the governor gently. Yvonne picked up the Cd case that had been lying on top of the diskman. It was an album by Robbie Williams, Life Through A Lens. Flicking open the machine, Yvonne saw that the CD was still inside.   
  
She signed all the relevant forms, thanked the governor, though she didn't really know what for, and walked out to the car. Karen was smoking, and flicked her cigarette out the window as Yvonne got in.   
  
"Are you okay?" Asked Karen, mentally clobbering herself for saying such a thing. Yvonne gave her a watery smile.   
  
"No," She said, "I'm not, but I will be." Yvonne went to put the bag of Ritchie's belongings on the floor by her feet, but she fished out the Robbie Williams CD case.   
  
"The governor said he was listening to this when he died," She said, holding it up. As Karen stared transfixed at the album cover, a flood of memories seemed to overtake her. She could remember like it was yesterday, the hard muscle yet soft boyish skin of Ritchie's body. She could still smell the subtle aroma of his aftershave. But most of all, she could clearly remember the music he'd been playing on her last visit to that hotel suite.   
  
"He was playing that CD the last night I spent with him," Karen said quietly.   
  
They drove silently for some minutes. She could tell by Yvonne's expression that in time, she would recover from this. They were both emotionally exhausted. Yvonne, because the weight of grief and partial guilt is heavier than any other intangible feeling, and Karen, because giving the type of constant support Yvonne needed was draining reserves she never knew she had. All she was concentrating on was Yvonne, and every nuance of her silence. Observing a signpost warning of a bad car crash on one of the roads they had taken earlier, Karen automatically swung left and took a different route. Yvonne watched Karen's skillful hands on the wheel and let her mind wander. She didn't need to talk. That was the thing with Karen, simply being with her yet being silent gave her as much comfort as verbalising any of the things she was feeling. Their was a level of empathy from Karen that simply told Yvonne she was there for her. The rain that had started last night was proving everyone's assumption that the heat wave had finally given up. Yvonne felt that the weather reflected her mood. Were the skies crying for her in their own way, she wasn't sure. But it was as she was contemplating this fact, that Karen's sky fell in.   
  
It was driving along that road that had done it. If she'd given any thought to their surroundings at all, she could possibly have avoided doing this. Karen saw it, looming up out of the rain, the true embodiment of all her worst nightmares. It was that road, that road from which she'd driven like a mad woman. That road that held the B and B where it had all happened. It felt like the realisation crept up on her in slow motion, but it took her only a matter of seconds to be plunged back in to that night of horror. Again she could hear him telling her she wanted it, again she could feel him holding her down. But the voice she heard above all wasn't Fenner's, it was Helen's.   
  
"He's been playing you since day one, Karen. He's a misogynist bastard." And as she took in breath after deep breath to try and keep control of the situation, "You're too close Karen, you can't see it." Then, she was driving like she had done that night. The accelerator hit the floor and she roared away from the scene of her downfall. Karen's sudden increase in speed jerked Yvonne out of her musings. Looking at Karen's face to try and find out why they were suddenly tearing away like a bat out of hell, she was worried to see the glazed eyes and white face of someone reliving some horrendous torture. It seemed Karen didn't need to see where she was going, that journey had been imprinted on her memory for ever. But Yvonne soon realised that a Saturday lunchtime in the pouring rain was no time to be driving like that.   
  
"Pull over," Yvonne said perfectly calmly. Then, on getting absolutely no response, she said, "Karen, pull over, now!" This was delivered in the voice that had shaken just about any of Charlie's lackeys in their shoes. Her tone of voice if nothing else must have penetrated Karen's frightened brain, because she turned in to the next side street and came to a stop at the side of the road. Karen leaned on the steering wheel and continued taking deep breaths. The tears were now coursing down her cheeks and her breath came in deep shuddering gasps. Yvonne took her shoulders and turned Karen to face her.   
  
"It's okay," She said gently, still not knowing the reason for all this. "But you've got to calm down, because I don't want you hyperventilating on me." Karen's breathing soon turned in to sobs, which Yvonne could see she was trying her best to prevent. "Don't hold it back," Said Yvonne, undoing both their seatbelts and taking Karen in her arms, "Just let it all out."   
  
They simply sat, Yvonne gently rubbing circles on Karen's back, soothing her in the same way she might a trembling dog or a frightened child.   
  
"I'm sorry," Karen said, her sobs decreasing and her breathing returning to normal.   
  
"That's okay," Said Yvonne still mystified. "You just scared the hell out of me, that's all."   
  
"I think that's what's generally known as a flashback," Said Karen, reaching in to the glove compartment to find the box of tissues she always kept in there.   
  
"What happened?" Asked Yvonne gently. Karen blew her nose.   
  
"There was a house back there. You wouldn't know it was any different to any other house. I'd forgotten he used to live round here, so I wasn't expecting to see it." Then at Yvonne's still curious silence she went on, "It was where Fenner used to live, where he was living when..." She didn't seem able to finish the sentence. As Yvonne gently took her hand and began stroking it, something seemed to finally give way in Karen and suddenly she couldn't stop talking.   
  
"I remember waiting till he'd fallen asleep to get dressed. Why is it men always fall asleep immediately afterwards? He woke up just as I was leaving. He really didn't know what he'd done to me. He tried to stop me getting in my car. I drove away from there then pretty much like I did today. When I told Mark what had happened the next morning, at first he was as nice as possible to me, until he realised I'd let things go as far as they had. He looked at me like I was a whore. He was the only one I thought might listen to me, and he made me feel cheaper than I already did." These last words were said with such bitterness that Yvonne winced. "When we drove passed that house," Continued Karen, all I could hear was Helen telling me he'd been playing me since day one. She was right, all along she was right and not once did I listen to her. I knew what he was like. I saw what was left of Shell dockley when he'd beaten the hell out of her, I'd read Helen's report of his sexual assault on her, but I still let the bastard kiss me. What kind of a thick slag does that make me?"   
  
"Don't say that!" Said Yvonne vehemently, hating it when Karen referred to herself in this way. "It makes you human," She said more gently. "Don't you think I knew what Charlie was like? I was married to him for twenty-six years before I got sent to Larkhall. I knew every bad thing there was to know about Charlie, but it didn't stop a part of me loving him. There are too many things Lauren could tell you about the way he treated me occasionally, but I still stayed. It might be totally ridiculous, but it's what we do sometimes."   
  
"I'm sorry," Karen said again, "You don't need this, today of all days."   
  
"You didn't know that was going to happen," Said Yvonne softly, giving Karen a hug.   
  
"but you need me to be strong for you, and I feel a total wreck."   
  
"Listen," Said Yvonne, her cheek pressed against Karen's. "You were strong last night, and I know you will be again. I think we have to be strong for each other. Isn't that what this couple thing's supposed to be about?" Karen smiled shakily.   
  
"Yeah, I suppose," She replied. "What do you want to do?"   
  
"I think we should go back to yours," Said Yvonne, "And I think you should sleep for a bit. You look drained. Oh, and we're swapping right now because you're not doing any more driving today." Not being able to come up with a decent protest to this, Karen got out of the car and they changed seats. As Yvonne drove towards Karen's flat, she knew the only way Karen could begin to move on from what Fenner had done to her was to go after him with one of the best legal mind's she'd ever seen.   
  
"Have you thought about what Jo said?" She asked casually, but nothing could fool Karen.   
  
"We'll see," Said Karen, knowing Yvonne was right, but doubting that she could really pull it off. A while later when she was wrapped in her duvet and on following Yvonne's instructions, drifting towards sleep, she could hear the sounds of Yvonne making a cup of tea, and phoning to see how Lauren was doing. This made her feel slightly guilty, Yvonne should be with Lauren now, not her. but when she heard Yvonne quietly comment on the fact that Lauren was still sleeping off her hangover, she relaxed. She decided that she liked hearing Yvonne in her space. It felt natural somehow. She just prayed that Yvonne wouldn't quit now that she knew how much Karen needed her to stay. 


	60. Part Sixty

Part Sixty   
  
Yvonne placed a cup of tea in Karen's hand as she awoke and that little gesture was one of utter bliss which had never happened to her before with all the men in her past. There was a little voice in both of them that was telling them that they didn't deserve such good fortune that the tenderness of the touch of each other gently sealed that invisible critic's lips.The feeling of both of them comforting each other at Karen's flat added an extra dimension in their relationship that both of them knew that the one would be there for each other. This was like no past relationship either of them had had before. It was only now that they had opened their horizons as to what was possible that the 'make do and mend ' approach was accepting second best when there was no need to.   
  
"I suppose you've got to face Lauren sometime," Karen eventually said, saying the words at last that both had been putting off.  
  
"Yeah," sighed Yvonne. "Lauren's not a bleeding teenager anymore. Hell, she had all those years picking up the business after Charlie left everything in a mess, coming to visit me, you name it, she did it and now I'm out, I'm worrying about her. Kids. You never stop worrying about them till……." And Yvonne suddenly put her hands to her eyes to rub the tears away as the final brutality of Ritchie's death hit her. It was like the pain that a hospital patient felt in his left leg even though that leg had been amputated. This pain hadn't caught up with Yvonne by a long way but she didn't pretend to publicly conceal the tears that were streaming down her face in the way she would have done with anyone else, Charlie included.   
  
Karen couldn't think of anything to say that didn't sound futile or pathetic and the best she could do was to gently put her arms round Yvonne and to hold her. There was a strange instinct in Karen that they must get going quickly so that Yvonne could be with Lauren as soon as possible but she fought that back, Cassie and Roisin being still around and being best placed to hold the fort. Karen gently stroked Yvonne's shoulders and continued to comfort her.   
  
"Better face the music," Yvonne said at length, partly to herself, and she caught sight of herself in the mirror.  
  
" I must look a right sight," she added as Yvonne's basic instinct for facing up to a situation took command. "Can I borrow your mirror?" Yvonne asked politely as she reached for her makeup bag.  
  
"You don't need to ask,Yvonne," Karen replied softly. "You can share anything that's here including me."  
  
Karen lay back reclining on her bed while Yvonne busied herself with her makeup, deliberately not hurrying. Karen knew that Yvonne meant to get her appearance just right so that she could feel at her most confident in facing Lauren. From her own parent offspring rows, she knew that you needed all the strength, resilience and ability to get the words just right.  
  
"Do I look all right, Karen?" Yvonne asked.  
  
"You look wonderful enough to go out with anywhere," Karen warmly congratulated her. "And I know that you'll find it in yourself to face Lauren. Come on."  
  
They drove through the busy streets, chatting lightly to each other about anything but the business in hand. Eventually, Karen found herself on the familiar roads that led to Yvonne's house and pulled up in the front drive that, to Karen, was becoming part of her mental furniture. Just today, Karen didn't stay to linger and turned her car round in the direction of her flat which was beginning to feel too quiet on her own with just her.   
  
Yvonne mustered her confidence and was mightily relieved to see Cassie and Roisin come out to meet her first.  
  
"How did it go, Yvonne?" Cassie asked, concern in her eyes. Yvonne's elaborate makeup didn't fool Cassie into believing that Yvonne was as strong as she superficially appeared to be.  
  
"As well as you could expect, Cassie." Yvonne smiled warmly at Cassie's obvious concern. "He looked like the innocent child he was, once." Yvonne replied with something indefinable in her voice.  
  
"We know how you're feeling, Yvonne." Roisin's natural maternal tones soothed her in words that from other people would sound like empty platitudes. Yvonne felt grateful and supported by Cassie who had grown marvellously in strength and maturity since she had first known her and Roisin whose quieter maternal strength was as solid as a rock. She knew with utter certainty that Lauren had been in safe hands.  
  
  
  
"Made an appearance at last, mum. Or is it because you feel guilty?" Lauren was dressed all in black, adding a more foreboding appearance as her cold sarcastic tones greeted Yvonne. Only the pain in her eyes betrayed her to everyone but herself.  
  
"Yeah, well, someone had to go to Wormwood Scrubs to identify his body, to do the sort of things Charlie ducked out of doing when both his parents died. I've had to do it all, Lauren, right through all my bleeding life." Yvonne hit back in a cold, matter of fact tone.  
  
"Tell me about it. Remember when you were in Larkhall. Don't forget it was me that was looking after everything that time," Lauren sneered back.  
  
"Which is why I expect you to be more grown up right now, about Karen, about Ritchie about everything. I'm not in the mood to piss about." Yvonne's superficial combative hardness hit back. It was the verbal equivalent of a slap in the face, as a wake up call. Going all soft and apologetic in front of Lauren wasn't going to work.  
  
"If your……..girlfriend…..hadn't come into our lives, Ritchie would still be alive."  
  
"Did you tell Karen that one, Lauren?" Yvonne asked her sharply with an accusing look in her eye.  
  
Eventually Lauren shrugged her shoulders in mute assent and the very ugly silence made the air go chill. It was on the tip of Yvonne's tongue to call her every name under the sun but some instinct held her back that this was not the best thing to do.Yvonne's manner gave off waves of pent up anger that was more threatening than words could have conveyed that even a very hostile Lauren picked up on and felt a little afraid of.   
  
Cassie and Roisin stayed well in the background at this all out war that was blazing between Lauren and Yvonne. They held back, instinctively knowing that it was not their battle, ready though they were to dress the bandages of the wounded afterwards. This wasn't parent child arguments which they were used to but between two very combative adults who fought so violently because they were so alike.  
  
"Look here, Lauren. Blaming Karen is the easy way out. She's the most convenient person to hand who won't hit back at you," Yvonne said with a huge effort of will to be reasonable.  
  
"Won't she? Women are deadlier than men, mum. Don't be naïve," Came back Lauren's hard tones.   
  
"You're right, Lauren," Yvonne smiled, jumping straight in to the opening in Lauren's defence that she had instantly exposed. "Don't forget who organised the pizza delivery for Charlie when he came out of court, remember? Not that I blame you for that as you only did what I would have wanted to do. And who the hell do you think Karen Betts is, Julie Andrews? She's only a Wing Governor of a women's prison and as tough as they come," Yvonne hit back scornfully.  
  
"Yes, well that was different. I didn't want him to walk over you with that fancy tart of his," Lauren grudgingly mumbled in a totally teenage way, for once not talking about Karen.   
  
"Look here, Lauren," Yvonne spoke in a more even gentle tone. "You know well enough that Ritchie was weak. He fell into bad company, the sort of company that he'd never have come across if I hadn't been so proud to be the gangster's moll, so much of an Atkins. But Ritchie had to take the blame for what he did. He let himself be used and scammed fifty grand off us, off all your hard work. He was guilty, OK not as guilty as Snowball but guilty enough. If those two had pulled it off, they would have pissed off abroad laughing in our faces, and we would not have heard anything more off them while they would have lived it up in luxury. Why are you trying to make out that Ritchie was some kind of bleeding saint? He was ready enough to stick the knife into Karen in open court when she couldn't answer back. That's Ritchie all over, same as his dad. You don't do things like that, Lauren." Yvonne finished on a tender, urging note.   
  
"Is that what you call being an Atkins, mum?"  
  
"I never was an Atkins, Lauren. I only married one and fooled myself into believing that that was who I should be. And I brought up you and Ritchie to become part of the Atkins family. I'll never lose that guilt for what I did wrong that way. You are more of an Atkins than I ever was or will ever be again.."  
  
"Discovering your values late in life eh, mum?" Lauren said, spitefully. "Along with fancying other women."  
  
"You do not say that in front of my friends in my house, Lauren," Yvonne said in cold tones that sounded like ice cold drops hitting a red hot plate.  
  
"I'm sorry ,Cassie and Roisin," Lauren turned beseechingly with her eyes. "The two of you are great together. It's just my mum, with another woman." Roisin secretly squeezed Cassie's hand as a signal to keep quiet as not saying anything can sometimes be best. Lauren felt total remorse for what she had said. Cassie had always been great company and something of a wiser, older sister and recently, Roisin's natural motherly way was something that the softer side of Lauren reached out to. Last night, the physical presence of both of them next to her was more of a comfort than she could say..  
  
"I can't get my head round this, mum," Lauren said, pressing her hands to her head. With a touch of relief, Yvonne could sense the solid implacable wall of Lauren's anger start to crumble. She had gambled that if she faced Lauren out long enough, sooner or later she would win through.  
  
"You think this is easy for me? All this is new to me too. I don't go round giving women the eye every day, Lauren," Yvonne's light joking tones permeated their way through the hard defensive shield and brought back memories of the jokes that her mum always exchanged with her from when she was little. That was her way of treating her as a grown up from an early age and made her fundamentally stable. Somehow Ritchie did not have their quickness of repartee and was always that bit slower than them.   
  
"But this is one thing that has helped me to realise that it's never too late to change," Yvonne ended in her husky tones rich with heartfelt emotion. "And that is why I want a second chance at life with Karen. You know that you won't have to watch out for me being taken for a ride."  
  
Lauren fell silent, looking at her feet and her hair falling in front of her eyes. This wasn't the tense, violent silence of before but Lauren mulling her way through everything she had said and struggling to make sense of it. Mum had been as straight as a die, she reflected, and had given her the chance to give ground gracefully. The longer the silence lasted, the more something softened to mum in the way she had held back and had respected her silence. When she ever got into an argument with Charlie and she showed any weakness, the bastard just verbally crushed her into the ground. Showing weakness to him only encouraged him to grind her down into total surrender. That was what had made her grow up hard. Mum never used to do that with her.   
  
"How did you find out about me and Karen anyway?" Yvonne asked, steering the conversation to a more neutral topic.  
  
Immediately, Lauren felt more relaxed. This was a direct appeal to her intelligence which she could not find it in her to reject and she warmed to her. Instantly, the adult Lauren clicked into operation.  
  
"If you really want to cover up whom you've slept with, mum, always make your bed to look slept in on one side. I went into your bedroom to borrow your hairspray and noticed that your bed was unmade on both sides, therefore you had spent the night with Karen," Lauren said with a hint of a smile on her face. "The rest was dead easy."  
  
"What a total pillock I was to forget that one. I do my best to bring you up to be sharp witted and this is how you repay me." Yvonne smiled for the first time in what seemed an eternity since she had walked through the front door.  
  
"Do you want a drink, mum? I must make one for you, Cassie and Roisin. I'm sorry I was horrible to both of you. I feel terrible.."   
  
"Don't worry, Lauren. We understand." Roisin's warm tones reassured her. "We remember it took a lot to get Michael and Niamh used to the idea of Cassie. It isn't easy for all sides."  
  
"I'm going to stick to coke today," Lauren joked. "The stuff you drink rather than snort."   
  
"Are you going to go easy on Karen in future?" Yvonne asked uneasily taking her life into her hands.  
  
"Look, mum," Lauren put the bottle of wine down firmly on the table and turned to face her. "You don't get me dressing up as bridesmaid for whatever the hell you may have in mind in the future. Besides, it won't do my street cred any good," Lauren added to soften the blow. "I will promise to be polite to her and to be fair with her. You can't ask for more than that at this stage. I need to think things over. Give me time, mum, please."  
  
"I couldn't ask for more from you, Lauren." Yvonne said in her most tender tones.   
  
Both of them reached forward for the other in the first mother and daughter hug that they had exchanged for ages. Somehow a tentative agreement had been reached. Cassie and Roisin looked fondly and sentimentally on at the two of them acting at last like family.  
  
  
  
Back at the flat, Karen busied herself with a bit of spring cleaning to keep her busy to stop herself thinking too much about how Yvonne was getting on. Out of the blue, a thought popped into her mind to phone up Ross to make sure he was all right. When he was at university, she used to accept it calmly that if she didn't hear from Ross, everything was fine, that he was being a typical student, scraping together last minute coursework which periodically interfered with his hectic social life. In recent times, Ross's reckless decision to drop out of uni had enraged all Karen's work ethics. She had had to struggle so bloody hard for what she had achieved from life. She had been a single mum for a lot of the time and had completed a university degree while she was working. There had been a blazing argument between the two of them at which point he had walked out and she had frozen him out of her mind. Ross, himself, was too proud to contact Karen. False pride and weakness were features of Ross's father which had been carried on in Ross despite all her urgings and her own example which ought to make some mark on him for God's sake. On the rare occasions, he did make contact, it was always to cadge money off her and she despaired that he was still without a job, drifting and going nowhere. What had happened between Ritchie and Yvonne drove her to resume contact between the two of them while there was still time. Life, she had been taught, may be shorter than you think.  
  
"Ross," Karen said on the phone. "It's mum here."  
  
"Mum," Ross's voice conveyed all the incredulity that someone out for a stroll in the countryside might think on confronting a red London double decker bus. "You don't normally phone me except to give me a lecture. What've I done?"  
  
"I wanted to check that you are still alive. A natural thing to do. How are you getting on?"  
  
"Nothing brilliant. Daytime television is dead boring what with Trisha and that grey haired guy what's his name, talking to you about all these depressing problems that I'd sooner not know about. Nothing ever happens in my life. One day is just like the next and totally boring and depressing."  
  
"There are worse things in life, Ross," Karen said, remembering the fire, nearly having her brains blown out by a homicidal fake American porn star, spending a gruelling two weeks defending her professional and personal reputation on something more testing than a shallow TV confession show.  
  
"Yeah, so you keep telling me mum. Thanks for the lecture. Can I borrow a tenner off you till I cash my giro. I'm really short of money," Ross said in his wheedling way.  
  
"Just this once, Ross. But giving you money doesn't mean I'm buying your approval of me." Karen said this in a severe tone. "If you stay sitting on your backside, you'll get nowhere in life. I'd like to meet up with you but no tapping me for money. It has to be about something positive."  
  
"So you say, mum," Ross yawned. "Well, bye bye."  
  
It was on the tip of Karen's tongue to ask Ross that, in his extensive television watching, had he seen her on the news but thought better of it. What did her fleeting seconds on the news matter in comparison with Dale Winton's latest mindnumbingly boring effort?   
  
She had done her best.   
  
  
  
"Did you have something in mind for the funeral, mum?" Lauren asked politely in level tones, which gladdened Yvonne's heart even though a part of her didn't want to move ahead that quickly. "What about getting Henry, you know Babs husband to do the service. I'm not exactly used to mixing with vicars but I'd be more comfortable with him than anyone if you are, and everyone else is."  
  
"Good idea," said Yvonne approvingly as she reached for the phone.  
  
"Yvonne, I can only say how sorry Henry and I were when we read about the terrible news of Ritchie." Babs's Middle England voice carried all the warmth and sympathy across the inanimate telephone wires.   
  
"Do you think Henry would do the service?" Yvonne asked and when Henry broke in on the conversation assuring her that he would be happy to, Lauren nodded in satisfaction.  
  
"Did you ever hear how you ended up with the name Lauren?" Yvonne said later as they sat together on the sofa.  
  
"Who chose it?"  
  
"Charlie and I were watching this Humphrey Bogart film on the telly," Yvonne explained. "Charlie loved all those gangster films as you would guess but the woman who took the part of his wife, and was his wife in real life, looked cool and tough with a bit of a hard edge. She had real taste. She impressed me at the time. Her name was Lauren Bacall."  
  
"I think you knew what you were doing at the time. That suits me fine." Lauren smiled happily to Yvonne's agreement. 


	61. Part Sixty One

Part Sixty One   
  
On the Monday morning, Karen drove in to work with a heavy heart. She hadn't seen Yvonne yesterday, but they'd spoken on the phone. Karen felt that they could both do with some space and that Yvonne needed to spend some time alone with Lauren. Besides, Karen had the joys of Sylvia to deal with, not quite the best start to a week she'd ever had. When Sylvia presented herself, on the dot of nine Karen was pleased to note, she immediately plonked a very neat, very professional-looking report on Karen's desk.   
  
"Get someone to type it for you, Sylvia?" Karen asked, giving it the once over.   
  
"No," Replied Sylvia, her affronted dignity sticking out like a sore thumb. "Since Barbara Hunt was released, I've had to learn to use that damned computer."   
  
"About time," Said Karen dryly. "At least now the inmates won't be able to swindle the canteen right under your very nose."   
  
"You want to ask Tyler and Atkins about that," Replied Sylvia, but Karen privately thought she wouldn't.   
  
"So, tell me what happened, and why you failed to keep Merriman on fifteen minute watch."   
  
"It's all in there," Said Sylvia, gesturing to the report. "Al McKenzy started a fight with one of the new ones, probably trying to see if she was carrying any drugs. There were only three of us here last Friday night, and it took two of us to haul McKenzy down the block and the third to bang up the rest. You might find it hard to believe, but I can't be in two places at once."   
  
"When you were escorting Merriman to court, did you at any time let her speak to Ritchie Atkins?"   
  
"Do I look stupid?" Asked Sylvia and Karen hid a smile. "I wouldn't have let her speak to Atkins if it'd been her dying wish."   
  
"It may well have been," Said Karen.   
  
"If you ask me," Went on Sylvia. "It's Di Barker you want to be talking too, she was with Merriman when they got the verdict, and I can't think of a more likely time for them to exchange a few words than that." Realising that for once, Sylvia had a point, Karen dismissed her and asked her to send up Di Barker. Karen had always thought there was something a little odd about Di. She was one of the most highly strung people Karen had ever encountered. She felt sorry for Di for having lost her baby, but shit happens sometimes. When Di appeared, she was looking slightly worried.   
  
"I don't know why you want to see me," Di began with no preamble, "I wasn't even here on Friday night."   
  
"but you were in court with Snowball Merriman on Friday, weren't you."   
  
"Yes, but I kept my eye on her all the time. They didn't have any opportunity to plan this whilst she was with me."   
  
"Think about that very, very carefully," Continued Karen. "Did you at any time, sanction any communication between Merriman and Atkins?"   
  
"Only once, after the verdict, when they were about to be taken back to prison."   
  
"Before we get on to why you felt it necessary to go against every rule in the book, exactly what was said between them?"   
  
"Nothing really. He didn't say a word, and all she said was I love you and goodbye." On this last word, Di suddenly stopped in her tracks. "But that doesn't mean anything," She added, stammering slightly in her attempt to convince both of them.   
  
"I wonder," Said Karen sarcastically. "If there's one thing you absolutely don't do when you're escorting someone like Snowball Merriman to court, it's allow her to communicate with her co-defendent. This isn't permissible under any circumstances whatsoever. Is that clear?"   
  
"Those few little words couldn't possibly have been part of a plan."   
  
"Maybe not," Conceded Karen. "But I'd say they were her confirmation that the plan was to be put in to action. I think it's possible that the unofficial postal system has been at work again."   
  
"Well, you can't blame me for that," Said Di, now well and truly back on the defensive.   
  
"No," Replied Karen, "I can't blame you for the results of inefficient search procedures, but I can and will apportion blame for your allowing Merriman to speak to Atkins. What were you thinking of?"   
  
"Even if they'd eventually been allowed an interprison visit, which isn't very likely, they wouldn't have been able to communicate for a very long time. I didn't think it would do any harm to let them exchange one last word." Extracting a copy of the prison handbook from the top of her bookcase, Karen thumped it down on the desk in front of Di.   
  
"Let me ask you this," Said Karen, her anger rising. "Why do you think rules exist?"   
  
"To keep the prisoners in line and to make our job easier," Said Di without a second thought.   
  
"Not quite the definition I'd have given," Replied Karen, "But it'll do. The rules exist because there are some things that prisoners must not be allowed to do, like communicate with those who may help them to escape or to commit further crimes, for example. Your allowing Merriman and Atkins those few little words was at least partly responsible for their subsequent joint suicide."   
  
"Oh, and I suppose your sleeping with Ritchie Atkins didn't have anything to do with a gun being smuggled in to this place, did it." Ice cold fury seemed to permeate Karen's entire body. But she knew it would come to this. It needn't have necessarily been Di, and if Karen were honest with herself she would have expected something like this from Sylvia. But here she was, and it was time to make her position as Die's immediate superior extremely clear.   
  
"If you want to continue working in the prison service," She said, the icy threat dripping from her tone. "That had better be the last smart comment of your career. Now get out." Di didn't need telling twice. Knowing she'd gone just that little bit too far, she turned on her heel and stalked out of Karen's office, shutting the door smartly behind her.   
  
Yvonne was sat at home, staring at the painting of Trigger which she'd got round to hanging at the weekend, and wondering just exactly what was expected of her now. She hadn't attended Charlie's funeral, as she had been banged up during the investigation of his murder. But she doubted whether or not she'd have gone even if she could. But Ritchie was different. He was her son, and nothing could ever change that. Outliving their children is the last thing any parent expects to do, and Yvonne was no different. Even being constantly aware that any member of the Atkins family probably had a shorter life expectancy than most other human beings, she hadn't ever considered that Ritchie or Lauren would die before she did. They were her children, and that wasn't the way it was supposed to happen. She'd asked Henry if he would do the funeral, because she knew he would do it sensitively and not spout a load of crap that was superficial and above all wrong. but Yvonne knew she wanted something else, something to make it that little bit special. She wanted to be able to have a last memory of Ritchie, some way in which to remember the time when he'd loved her. Picking up the phone, she dialed Cassie and Roisin's number. Roisin answered.   
  
"How're you doing?" Asked Roisin on hearing it was Yvonne.   
  
"I don't know really," Replied Yvonne, knowing this was the truth. "When are the kids coming home?"   
  
"Aiden's bringing them back on Saturday. He took them to Ireland to see his mother last week, but they're back at school and I'm back at work on Monday." Roisin worked as a secretary at her children's primary school.   
  
"Please would you do something for me?" Asked Yvonne.   
  
"Of course."   
  
"Would you sing something at Ritchie's funeral. Yours is one of the sweetest voices I've ever heard, and it might give me a bit of thinking time."   
  
"I'm flattered," Said Roisin gently. "And yes, of course I will. Did you have anything in mind?"   
  
"No, not really."   
  
"I'll see what I can come up with and let you know."   
  
As it was the first of September, and as she'd been pretty much away from the prison for the last two weeks, Karen was in the process of compiling the statistics for August. This included how many prisoners had been accommodated on G wing, the three different regimes of prisoners, and the types of offences they were in for. She was in the middle of wrestling with a spreadsheet, trying to bring the cost for the next month down to something resembling its budget, when her phone rang.   
  
"Karen Betts," She said as she answered.   
  
"Karen, it's John Deed." Karen was a little surprised, but then realised that the press would have had a field day with the news of the joint suicide.   
  
"Hello, Judge, what can I do for you?"   
  
"I read Friday night's news in Saturday morning's paper and simply wondered how you were." Karen was slightly thrown by this, but then remembered how nice John had been to her when discussing her covered up allegation.   
  
"Well, I've bawled out two of my staff already today and it's only lunchtime. How about you?" John laughed.   
  
"Seeing as I've never had to shout at Coope for anything, my day has been fairly quiet so far. But I suspect I'll be getting a visit from my two very own irritants from the LCD."   
  
"I haven't looked at a paper since last week, but I bet your press has been as bad as mine."   
  
"They'll find something else to talk about in a day or two," Said John, neither confirming nor denying Karen's estimate.   
  
"At least one of your officers wasn't stupid enough to allow Merriman to talk to Atkins after the verdict."   
  
"Not clever," Said John in disgust.   
  
"And then she very kindly reminded me that it was my fault a gun was brought in here in the first place."   
  
"Ouch!" Said John with feeling. "But you're forgetting that I was the one who sent them down," He continued.   
  
"Not exactly without good reason," Replied Karen. "The press can hardly criticize you for doing your job." John laughed.   
  
"They do that every day. How's Yvonne?" Karen was inexplicably grateful that John hadn't referred to Yvonne as Mrs. Atkins.   
  
"She's coping, but how long that'll last I'm not sure."   
  
"Please pass on my condolences. After reading that in the paper, I drove straight over to see my daughter on Saturday."   
  
"Yes, I found myself talking to my son, not something we do all that often since he dropped out of college."   
  
"The joys of being a parent," Replied John, thinking that Karen must have been very young when she became a mother.   
  
"And no matter what they do, you never stop worrying about them." A while later when she ended the call, Karen felt slightly more at ease than she had done ever since she'd heard about the double suicide. They seemed to have struck a chord, her and this Judge who had come in to her life almost by accident. Karen had felt nothing but warmth and compassion on that occasion when he'd summoned her to his chambers, and just now, on the phone, she'd felt again that same empathy that could so easily develop in to a lasting friendship. 


	62. Part Sixty Two

Part Sixty Two   
  
After the traumatic events of the weekend, the Atkins household slid into a state of lethargic slump as dirty dishes were piled up in the sink , odd items of clothing were draped carelessly on the settee and empty bottles and glasses were left out on the coffee table. Both Yvonne and Lauren had got used to lying in bed till late as they went through a kickback from the intense strain of the leadup to, the 2 week trial itself and the shattering impact of Ritchie's death. Snatches of trial scenes weaved their way through their half awake, half asleep state first thing in their morning as John Deed's sonorous voice pronounced sentence on their lifestyles and they lay upon the hard bench in the visitor's gallery which mutated into an uncomfortable position on their beds.   
  
"What's it matter, mum. It's only housework. As soon as we're clear of this, whatever it is, things will get straight," Lauren said lazily.   
  
Together, they dreamed away the first few days between Ritchie's death and the funeral in a zomboid state as they felt that they were both convalescent but given time, would pull into shape. Yvonne stuck on the first clothes that came to hand although her makeup remained immaculate as she would not slip that far. Lauren slobbed around in jeans, T shirt and slippers watching daytime television.  
  
"Isn't Trisha a know all pain in the arse?" Lauren joked. "If she was such a bloody good agony aunt, how come she's divorced twice."  
  
"Probably got married to Charlie's long lost cousins," Yvonne joked which made Lauren laugh and spill her drink.  
  
Cassie and Roisin breezed in at this moment, full of the sort of drive and energy born of the acute knowledge that on Saturday, the decadent life of swanning around Yvonne's swimming pool would be curtailed to the period of time that they could get baby sitters. This was summer holiday time which she could now see was a mixed blessing and different from her single days of complaining that the city shops were crowded out with all these schoolkids ruining her retail therapy.  
  
"Just look at you two," Roisin breezed in. "I've seen the bottom of parrot's cages tidier than this."  
  
"Leave it out,Roisin," Yvonne replied in a whinging voice. "We've been taking it easy.After last weekend, we needed a break… OK, Ritchie's funeral is coming up in, shit three days. Hey Lauren, have the bleeding undertakers been contacted." Yvonne's voice rose up the scale in growing panic."  
  
"Sorted, mum," Came the reply as she started to shift the worst of the debris away.  
  
"Well at least you two seem friends and that's the main thing," Cassie spoke earnestly."We were getting really worried about the two of you."  
  
"We'll never forget you both for standing by us." Lauren turned round and gave each of them a hug and a kiss.  
  
"Want a drink," Yvonne offered and went to pour a glass of wine. For herself and Lauren, she made two large mugs full of strong coffee. They needed something to kickstart themselves into life and start picking up the threads of the funeral arrangements. They were able to think of it as an event to be planned that was somehow distanced from them as they chatted amongst themselves. It was their only way of coping with the matter and they knew full well that the tears would come later .  
  
The vague cloudy fogginess round Yvonne's and Lauren's minds cleared and they were able to chatter in a businesslike way about placing a notice in the local paper, that the church was booked and who would be coming to the funeral.  
  
"You know what," Cassie joked. "At one time, you could have had Hollamby Undertakers Ltd to do the funeral."  
  
"Oh yeah, I can just imagine bleeding hearts and sympathy from Bodybag and her coming along for the ride , charging double the bleeding price and all and that cow lying through her teeth saying how she had always been so fond of the Atkins family," Yvonne replied, derisively  
  
Just then, Trigger's sharp ears caught the faintest sounds of a car coming to a halt outside and the door slam shut and his ears pricked up, his tail waved and he started barking.  
  
"I'll answer the door mum while you talk with Roisin about the songs she's singing. I'll go along with anything you come up with," Lauren said in easy tones as she followed her lord and master. She answered the front door and a faintly nervous Karen waited outside, dressed in her Wing Governor's outfit.  
  
"I've come to visit you to see how you're going on after things had quietened down a bit. Give you both time together on your own. Besides," Karen smiled faintly, "I was presented with a petition to take a half day off as I'd bawled out too many Prison Officers."   
  
"Who might these be if you don't mind me asking," Lauren half smiled, offering a tentative olive branch.  
  
"Di Barker and Sylvia Hollamby, my two favourite prison officers," Karen's smile was broader than before.  
  
"Couldn't happen to a better pair," Lauren grinned. "Come in. Mum is in the lounge with Cassie and Roisin. You couldn't have come at a better time." Lauren gestured to her, graciously.   
  
Trigger made a fuss of this extra human that he promptly rounded up to add to his pack at the far end of the house. Just when they came to the back room, they could hear the steel sharp notes of a guitar and singing that could only have come from Roisin.  
  
There was a peculiar feel about the two songs that might have been the sort that an accomplished ballad singer with an exquisite finger picking style could accomplish and the size of the room added subtle echoes. The first song weaved words of a hope despite the heartache and wandering through a wilderness and a secular faith in Jesus no hymn could conjure up and the second song called forth the golden fields and the promises that life calls for. A tear came to Yvonne's eyes as the last delicate steel notes gently faded away.  
  
"They're both beautiful, Roash," Cassie exclaimed admiringly.  
  
"Better than 'Abide with Me' anytime." Yvonne joked. "Seriously, I can't decide. Don't know about you Lauren, but I'd go for 'there is a reason for it all', but it's bloody close."   
  
Roisin's motherly way caused her to be acutely conscious of the sporadic laughing and joking going on between Yvonne and Lauren, that didn't seem right somehow. There was a tacit agreement between the two of them to keep things light so as to get their way through to the funeral which was like some huge milepost in space and time beyond which there was the unknown.  
  
Karen sat politely feeling more relaxed and joining in the smalltalk and in a strange way, Yvonne whose taste and feel she could remember so vividly was diminished as if looking through the wrong end of a telescope to this attractive woman who, months ago, had grown to be such a close friend of hers. Was it only three short weeks ago that Karen had been invited round here for dinner and that she had lent her a pen so that she could write down her address. Stuffed down in the depths of her handbag was that scribbled note that had been the point of entry into Yvonne's world. While she was sat here in one of Yvonne's capacious armchairs, she chattered away to Yvonne as much as she had ever done here, or in the bar near the prison when Yvonne came to visit Denny. Lauren was gracious enough to exchange conversation with Karen and she reflected on how necessary it had come to be to win Lauren's approval. She made a mental note to ask Cassie and Roisin how they got the children to accept them while basking in the warmth and sympathy that came over from them. It seemed totally unreal that she had once locked them up on G wing as so much had moved on since then.  
  
"What do we do about all Charlie's friends who want to pay their respects to Ritchie, Mum?" Lauren asked in despair at all the cocaine dealers, dubious backstreet dealers of cars with fiddled mileage clocks and ripoff repair jobs.   
  
"We just tell them that if they carry anything illegal into the church, they get kneecapped," Yvonne said with a grimly taut face. "It's going to be bleeding hard enough on the day without any tosspot doing anything stupid."  
  
Yvonne's thoughts were dragged to the nightmare of all Charlie's dodgy friends crowding round Ritchie telling him all the tall stories of how smart they were and Ritchie could follow in Charlie's footsteps.   
  
"Right, mum. And what about these letters from long lost cousins that are wanting to come as 'funerals bring families together'. Look at the list there that I've written. I've not seen any of them since I was little. I suppose they've been too busy," Lauren said scornfully.  
  
"They make their own way to the church and they can come."   
  
"What do you want us to do on the day?" Karen asked quietly, "Make our way here first or go direct to the church, whichever you want."   
  
"There's a funeral car and, if you want, the three of you could come with us," Lauren suggested quietly.   
  
"If you don't think we'll be in the way, we'd be only too glad to keep you company," Roisin replied.  
  
"Don't worry, you won't be in the way," Lauren's definite voice reassured Karen that they at least had some sort of a working relationship.There was a proprietorial way that Lauren was possessive around Yvonne that told her sharp senses that Lauren was not at the stage of bringing them breakfast in bed, only that things were getting better and that she ought to be careful not to push matters in that direction.  
  
"And don't forget your guitar, Roisin and, if there's any real trouble, bring along a pair of handcuffs, Karen. Any sniff of anything like the Old Bill will scare the shit out of some of them."  
  
For the first time in what seemed years they were able to laugh together briefly as one.  
  
The formal sombreness of the mood was conveyed by Yvonne's most formal black outfit which was a million miles away from her normal generous splash of bright colours. It was shocking to everyone to see her so frozen with grief and the way her dark glasses blocked anyone off from seeing her eyes.   
  
"It's all right, mum," Lauren slipped her arm into Yvonne's and walked her slowly down the wide staircase as if she was somehow old and frail. Yes she would laugh and love again , the smile would light her face and her supple body would part the waters of the swimming pool and reassure herself and everyone else that she was still young and full of the joys of life.  
  
"I hope you like a good party, girls," were her very first words when she came onto G Wing and so decisively met her future, and Lauren's and Ritchie's. yes, it all started from that one day.  
  
"We're all ready, Yvonne," Karen called quietly. "The car's ready outside whenever you're ready."  
  
"Thank you," Came the answer and the smile at the thoughtfulness shown to her. At the back of her mind stirred the thought that her lover was there for her and that she was being a true friend. She needed that and her daughter and Cassie and Roisin all around her. A huge relief was that around her, everything was being taken care of. Yvonne fumbled in her bag for a much needed cigarette which she took a huge drag of. One last look in her mirror and she nodded to everyone dressed in their formal best.  
  
Once in the funeral car, it was huge inside and very high up off the road as the driver sedately manoeuvred the limousine out onto the open road so that they could look down onto the fields that the hedges had always obscured. Somehow everything looked different today and they felt more as one than they had ever felt after all those days in court. This time, instead of being on the front row of the gallery as onlookers, they would be at the centre of attention, especially Yvonne and Lauren.   
  
They chatted small talk to each other in spurts in between the long silences until they could see the church in the distance.   
  
Yvonne clutched tightly onto Lauren's hand and her face drew tight as she saw the large black hearse ahead, parked outside the church. This was the moment she had been dreading starting to take shape.  
  
"We're with you, Yvonne," Roisin's motherly voice oozed reassurance almost as if she were a child. At moments like this, the others felt that Roisin was the most reassuring and in command.  
  
They stepped out onto the pavement when the pallbearers carried Ritchie's oak coffin in procession into the church, the only visible shape and manifestation of 'her little angel' which would make a brief reappearance only to be later moved out of her sight and reality.   
  
Yvonne was flanked by Lauren and Karen on either side as they walked towards the church doors . Roisin held her black guitar case and walked with Cassie behind ,with downcast eyes and they all murmured greetings to anonymous well dressed suits and grave faces as they filed into the church.  
  
Babs smiled her welcome at them as she turned round at the organ and an usher directed them to their place past stone columns and rows of ancient worn wooden pews right to the front and turning to the right. Henry could be seen rifling through various prayer books as he wondered, in his turn, what words from a bygone age he could ever say whom his testimony in some previous lifetime helped send him to the prison where he had ended his last days. The stately chords from the church organ, more magnificent than the small electric organ at Larkhall Prison, welcomed the increasing congregation which drifted in, and provided enough of a contemplative mood for everyone to face the solemn occasion. Roisin sat on the outside, her guitar resting against the pew, ready to sing her two songs when the time was ready.  
  
Yvonne's long lost aunt bristled a bit when she saw the three strangers take pride of place immediately behind Yvonne and Lauren on the front row.  
  
"We belong there with Yvonne. We're family. How come they've pushed in?" she started to grumble only to be told, under his breath, to shut it by her son. It was handier, being out of the limelight and not to feel so exposed or so he reasoned. Yvonne fought for control as the ceremony started and caught the eye of Henry, looking down from his pulpit with great pity at them. A fragment of her clung onto the comfort that, in the way he had been there for them all in the trial, he was there for them all right now. The silence of centuries hung heavy on them all as did the grief felt for so many confused reasons.  
  
"Jesus said, I am the Resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he dies yet shall he live and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. We bring nothing into this world and we take nothing out. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."   
  
Henry started in his formal tones, staring rigidly ahead of him through to the far entrance door to the church. Having witnessed the events at Larkhall prison, what else could he say about the young man whose girlfriend had severely tested his own Christian charity by exploiting his own foolishness so cleverly? Then he looked down at the congregation from on high, finding it so hard in what he said, to refrain from harsh moral judgement. John Deed's legal judgement in comparison was a comparatively easy affair, morally speaking, even if legally, it was anything else but simple.  
  
"I have some personal knowledge of Ritchie Atkins shortly before he left this earthly life and I very much hope that he finds some release from his short and unhappily troubled life.It was a human tragedy that he chose a desperate way out of life's problems. The Lord God watches over all of us and I am convinced will especially protect the grieving mother and sister of Ritchie Atkins and God will surely grant them the strength in the months to come. I will add my own personal prayers for all of you gathered together," Henry finished on a simple, heartfelt personal note, looking directly at the group around Yvonne and later taking in with a glance at the rest of the congregation..  
  
"Thank you, Henry," Yvonne added in a throaty choked voice, knowing how much he had tried in his own quiet way to help. Vicars as a class weren't a group that she had any time for but Henry's thoughtfulness touched her.  
  
"And better than my own few slight words could say, I am inviting with Yvonne Atkins's wishes a good friend of hers, Roisin Connor to perform two songs that say as much about this day than any hymn does. You will not need to refer to the hymn books for this service."  
  
Roisin picked up her guitar and her high heels clicked their way to the front of the church where she stood, spellbound for a second, by the height and seeming vastness of the space into which she was preparing to throw her voice and guitar in memory of the Richie that should have been, a mother's son and, most of all, for Yvonne.  
  
The prelude of a circular delicate tracery of plucked steel hard guitar notes cast a shaft of light and hope into the darkness and sadness of those in the church congregation   
  
"I've seen hard times, and I've been told,   
  
There isn't any wonder, that I fall.   
  
Why do we suffer, crossing off the years.   
  
There must be a reason for it all.   
  
I've trusted in you Jesus, save me from my sins.   
  
Heaven is a place I call my home.   
  
But I keep on getting caught up, in this world I'm living in,   
  
and your voice it sometimes fades before I know.   
  
Hurtin' brings my heart to you, crying with my need,   
  
depending on your love to carry me.   
  
The love that shed his blood, for all the world to see,   
  
this must be the reason for it all."  
  
Roisin's high strong voice melted its way through the chill atmosphere of the church and Karen looked up briefly at the ancient oak crossmembers which held up the church tower way up into the sky in the same way. She had memories of this when she was a little girl only this time the words said something for her life that she had lived up till now. Everything that day made those most sensitive to it contemplate their places in the universe, far away from the cares of the day to day jobs, the phone calls they had to make, the mobile phone that symbolised the modern at the ready switched on world that, one time in their lives, was switched off.  
  
"Ain't the vicar going to ask us to sing 'Abide with Me'? It always goes down well at funerals," one of Yvonne's distant relations talked too loudly right behind Cassie who turned round and glared at the stupid old bat. She was ignorantly talking in the middle of the superb trailing sequence of notes that Roisin coaxed out of her guitar and Cassie was rapt with admiration with her woman who was out there playing her heart out. This was no performance but Roisin's dedication to Yvonne.  
  
Henry, with great regret, asked the congregation to open their black prayer books and   
  
turn to I Corrinthians verse 15, at which point the rear of the congregation fumbled their way through the unfamiliar volume. He read the assigned passage without great enthusiasm and did not feel that he carried the unquestionable authority as a vicar in his position up on high in his pulpit in the same way that he saw and admired in the imposing red robed presence of John Deed in the trial. Henry had to contend with the combination of the Church of England establishment in the background and the more narrow minded bigoted active members of the congregation. It was the tedium of the genteel arguments and petty politics that made him take the bold step of seeking out a different flock at Larkhall Prison and led him ultimately to Babs, his dear wife who was seated at the organ. It was almost with relief that he came to the end of his reading to introduce Roisin's second song and he sat back in hope of what her song could tell him of life.   
  
The sunlight shone through the stained glass windows and reflected off Roisin's guitar as she sang and played her golden toned ballad to the congregation for those to listen if they had ears to hear with.  
  
  
  
"Will you stay with me, will you be my love  
  
Among the fields of barley  
  
We'll forget the sun in his jealous sky  
  
As we lie in fields of gold."  
  
Karen sat meekly at her pew, eyes downcast while Roisin plucked at the heartstrings of a brief relationship that had gone and another that was unfolding before her eyes while Cassie's misty eyes dreamed of a mature love that was hers and the woman who was singing to her as her eyes crossed with hers. At all costs, they all knew that the ominous wooden shape in the middle of the church spelt out the end of the earthly life of someone who some of them knew so briefly but whose weakness led to such terrible consequences that nearly consumed them in the flames. Roisin's own Catholic upbringing rose to the surface to wonder what fate or judgement lay waiting for Ritchie beyond the grave.  
  
"I never made promises lightly  
  
And there have been some that I've broken  
  
But I swear in the days still left  
  
We'll walk in fields of gold  
  
We'll walk in fields of gold."  
  
Yvonne's thoughts went out to the son she had once had and that brief hope that somewhere in eternity she and Ritchie would be reunited some day in the golden glow . She suppressed the cynical side of her that would have said 'some hope' as without that hope, what was there for her or anyone?   
  
"You'll remember me when the west wind moves  
  
Upon the fields of barley  
  
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky  
  
When we walked in fields of gold"  
  
In some sort of trance, Yvonne and Lauren led the congregation out of the church to the moment that they were both dreading. Both of them had a horror of the sight of an open grave and there, an impossible distance down, was the last visual cue of what had been Ritchie. All their family seemed to crowd them in however vaguely sympathetic they were. More than ever, it was the consciousness of their friends that gave them the strength to go on. Yvonne scattered the petals of a magnolia flower on the oak casket with the small brass plaque before the first drops of earth fell upon the open grave. Tears streaming down their faces, they both turned away from the sight.   
  
"Are you a friend of Yvonne?" Yvonne's aged aunt asked her as they stood awhile at the church gate.   
  
"Yes, I know her very well as do our friends," Karen replied with a straight face gesturing to Cassie and roisin who assumed their most respectable appearance they could muster up.   
  
"You all seem to be very close," She replied, seeing the four respectably dressed women as well as Lauren, of course. "Well, I'd best be going. Funny, you only see the family together at weddings and funerals. It brings you closer together. It must be hard seeing off your own son this way, Yvonne having lost your Charlie as well," she said in her own version of sympathy that she was brought up in. There was a set way of doing these things which, in her day, would be followed to the letter, not all this new fangled stuff of that woman singing in church. Couldn't understand what she was singing but sometimes, you have to move with the times a bit.  
  
"I'll hope to see you when you get married, Lauren. Mind you don't leave it too late for your poor old great aunt. None of us are getting any younger, are they Yvonne," she finished with her final homily to Lauren.  
  
"Yes, I'll remember," Lauren said with a straight face.  
  
"I suppose some of you have husbands to go home to so I'll let you go on your way," came the reply as the absentee matriarchal figure made her way towards her car.  
  
"The driver is waiting, Yvonne," Cassie said in a subdued tone.  
  
They made their way to the sanctuary of the limousine to take them out of there as the crowd had rapidly thinned. It was time for them to go. 


	63. Part Sixty Three

Part Sixty Three   
  
John Deed was sipping a cup of tea at the long mahogany table on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the peace and serenity of his digs. Despite his busy life, he craved these moments when the pressure of the cases could ease up and the case he had just dealt with was a clear cut Social Security fraud where the evidence was rock solid. The matter was one where he had to merely ensure the case was steered along a straight line to reach a predictable conclusion. The generality of his cases were of this kind but, after the Atkins Pilkinton case he was becoming much more wary as to what he thought of at first glance as a simple case. The afternoon was his to do as he liked and, despite his busy life, there were times that he positively enjoyed his own company.  
  
A message was delivered to him that Joe Channing wished to see him.  
  
"Shall the mountain come to Mohammed?" John asked himself. For a long time, the two of them had an uneasy relationship, John being classified in Joe's eyes as an emotional incontinent while John had Joe pegged as a died in the wool reactionary well to the right of Richard Nixon. He remembered vividly when he and George had first separated that Joe's first instinct was to threaten to give him a good thrashing with a horsewhip for mistreating his daughter. John's views had mellowed over time when he realised that if ever a man came along who mistreated Charlie, his and George's daughter, he might react in a very similar manner.  
  
"Take a seat, Joe. To what do I owe the privilege of your company on a Sunday afternoon?" John offered hospitably.  
  
Joe huffed and puffed his way into a chair opposite John and gratefully accepted the cup offered. Joe was clearly flustered and had a lot on his mind.  
  
"To tell you the truth, I've been worried about George recently," Joe rumbled his introduction, having not thought of a delicate opening gambit to ease his way into a tricky subject of conversation. He did not expect John to greatly concern himself about his ex-wife other than in the role of mother to their daughter.  
  
"I'm listening, Joe," John said in a reassuring tone. "You know as well as I do that relations between George and me are sometimes fraught which makes discussing personal matters difficult with her."  
  
"The two of you have been arguing for years but you are both Charlie's parents and a fellow judge….even though your judgements are often perverse," Joe added in the peeved tone that he dropped into as a matter of habit with John.  
  
"Exactly what is there about her behaviour that is troubling you?" John cut in, sensing that this conversation was going to be sidetracked to no good purpose unless he intervened.   
  
"Have you seen much of George recently?"  
  
" She was before me in the Crown versus Atkins and Pilkinton trial and she started off her usual argumentative impossible self. I must admit that she got better as the trial progressed, both to me and to Jo Mills. I did think that she got out of her depth and she knew it. Apart from a phone call a week last Saturday with Lover Boy thankfully out of the way, I've not heard anything from her."  
  
"You bring the conversation to the very point I've been meaning to mention, John. It's about Neil Houghton. Between you and me, I don't think that she's very happy with him and that makes me all the happier if he doesn't marry into the family," Joe Channing finished on an emphatic note.  
  
John suppressed his first instinct to let loose all the dammed up criticisms he had to make of Neil Houghton and rub it in how poor Joe Channing's judgement had been of the man. After all, Joe had regarded Neil as the blue eyed boy where the sunshine shone out of his backside and that everyone but John, had been taken for a ride by him.  
  
"What sort of problems do you find with him, Joe?" John kindly asked the evidently troubled man. Joe was of the old school where you kept a stiff upper lip and that you sorted out your own troubles. All this agony aunt nonsense was strictly for women, and weak willed women at that. He wasn't going to adopt any namby pamby attitudes and especially at his time of life.  
  
"We're both men of the world, John," Joe confided in the warmest display of acceptance of John that he had shown to him in years. "I first thought that George was merely having a run of bad luck in the cases that she was handling from casual conversation. Then when I started keeping my ears to the ground , I heard on the grapevine that it was one case after another and when I got to hear of the cases that she was taking on, they were all cases that I wouldn't have touched with a bargepole. I don't mind admitting to you that she was defending some pretty unsavoury characters."  
  
"In what way, Joe?" John asked, now keenly interested. "This is not George's style.Her field is in taking on civil and commercial cases. Ones that guarantee her a lot of money   
  
and where she can cut a deal. One thing I know about George is that she is no fool and that she is a bad loser. That makes her go into a plate throwing mood more than anything else. What you have told me so far doesn't add up."  
  
"My thoughts entirely," Joe replied, ignoring the implied criticism of him which was not lost on John. "George phoned up out of the blue and came over to see me the same day that you were on the phone to her."  
  
"With or without Neil?" John asked quickly.  
  
"Without of course," Joe replied.  
  
"Why the 'of course', Joe?"  
  
"Let me finish telling my story, dammit, without you acting as if you were in the judge's seat and I were one of the barristers that you are irritating to death," Joe exploded. "I am convinced that Neil is getting George to take on political cases to rescue some shady character from the consequences of his wrong doings or, in the case of the Atkins Pilkinton case, to get the pair of them acquitted so that one of them could stand trial in Florida. It's as plain as a pikestaff that I've seriously wondered that you haven't harangued me on the phone to use my influence behind the scenes."  
  
John shook his head in total bewilderment and wonder. Why in hell had he not thought of this obvious brainwave himself. Then again, he had not known how things stood between Joe and Lover Boy. He poured another cup of tea for him at his unspoken request as the day recalled more agreeable conversations a long time ago when he was still living with George. The world was tilting yet another subtle shift on it's axis that Joe Channing was a potential ally and that they were having a heart to heart talk about George's problems.   
  
"It's the man's attitude that offends me, John. He's clearly out for all he can get and thinks that I am merely a blundering old fool who can be of some use to him in his political ambitions just as George is," the rumbling tones of disgust and venom were, for once, not directed in his direction.  
  
"You always accused me of not being career minded, Joe," John smiled and his apparent wisecrack affectionately recalled times gone past including bitter arguments.  
  
"You were always a brilliant man.. You have the infuriating knack of somehow rising to be a High Court judge despite your perverse actions in sabotaging your own career. God knows what you would have become if you had really applied yourself to furthering your career," Joe rumbled on in his curious half critical, half admiring fashion.  
  
"And now you've seen a potential son in law dedicating himself totally to self advancement and you don't like it," John responded softly, having some real understanding of the man for the first time in his life.  
  
"The man has no standards, while you have at least got some standards. Ridiculous liberal bleeding heart left wing standards but standards nevertheless," Joe's bombastic manner recalled a little of George .  
  
"And in what other ways is George not happy with Lover Boy?" John asked quietly.  
  
Joe took a long pause while he collected his wits and sought for the right words. Describing the emotions of a woman was definitely something that did not come natural to him.  
  
"As you know, I see George every week and he only pops in occasionally. George makes excuses about him being a busy man and that sort of stuff and nonsense. I once probed her about the matter, nothing indelicate as you know and one of my best Ming vases went flying through the air and smashed against the wall. After that, there was a frightful scene which I won't describe to you …"  
  
"………I can imagine, Joe," John replied. His imagination could visualise the blunt way that Joe charged in as if George was still a little girl and winced, mentally anticipating the fury of the reaction even before Joe described it.  
  
"I told her that if she was going to break any chinaware, could she kindly break it at her own home at which point she shouted at me that she only broke things at houses that she felt comfortable in and stormed off. I thought that it was a peculiar comment and in very poor taste indeed."  
  
John smiled to himself as he could see the significance of this and the direction the story was pointing. His memory of half forgotten snatched conversations with George were recalled in sharp relief as they had more significance than he realised at the time..  
  
"To cut a long story short as I could go all round the houses on it, she came round on Saturday and she took me out to the back garden. She was happier than I've seen her and we talked about the old days. She said that she liked being out there as it reminded her of when she was a little girl and she used to play in the tree house at the back. She said that when she was in there, she felt peaceful and safe as Daddy would keep all the monsters out. As the day went on, she seemed to be more and more reluctant to go home. She didn't say anything, she never does, that damned obstinate girl………….."   
  
"What did she say or do then, Joe?" John asked quietly.  
  
"You know what she is like, John," Joe reacted with a flash of irritation set off by his allergy to John questioning him. "She was her usual argumentative self about nothing at all and abruptly took off in the car with a quick goodbye."  
  
".I think, Joe, that George really wanted to stay at your house and knew she couldn't and that's why she behaved the way that she did. I was talking to her that day and she told Lover Boy that he was living in her house and , I quote , said 'the lord and master is for once demanding my input in to a conversation.' That sounds to me that it is only a matter of time, Joe."  
  
"Good God," Joe said, looking shaken. "What do we do then."   
  
Joe Channing, had simply not looked that closely at matters and drawn them to the logical conclusion. Much though he loved his daughter, he had visions of the peace and serenity shattered by George's tempestuous ways and felt that he was far too old and set in his ways to cope with all this. However, needs must when the Devil drives, he finally decided with grim resolve. The man has more in him than I've realised, he thought to his vast surprise.   
  
"In the meantime, sit tight. After all, if she does dump that drip, she's far more likely to come your way than mine. George on present reckoning is far more likely to go back to Daddy than land herself at 'the Deed's digs," smiled John, recalling from Jo Mills George's less than flattering reference. 


	64. Part Sixty Four

Part Sixty Four   
  
More than ever before , the week after the Atkins Merriman trial made George wonder if there was a home to go home to even though she owned it. George's working week was becoming the enjoyable part of her day with fragments of warmth and liveliness of those around her who at least appreciated her sparkling conversation. She could handle the daily hard slog of the verbal cut and thrust of court work. She was always the sort of woman who threw herself into her work, especially after Charlie was born and provide for Charlie in the same way that Daddy provided the best for her. Even the Deed was at least good company whenever she ran into him, infuriating though the man could be. At least he was a human being. It was going home each night that was becoming the problem.  
  
When she let herself into the house, Neil's mask of disapproval was tangible and hit her like a blast of cold air. The man would never just get any grievance properly out of his system unless it was especially bad and then his idea of a row was a short cold list of things she had done wrong to harm his precious position in the Cabinet. The argument would always fizzle out with nothing ever resolved. He was used to his minions doing everything for him, his aide keeping his diary of events, his letters typed for him only to sign without ever properly reading them and the civil service doing what he wanted. On the other hand, he shamelessly toadied to those above him and it was this cosseted dishonest lifestyle which made him such a poor consort. That word said everything about their relationship, the emptiness of feelings, the focus on career moves and official duties. It was all this that made him so inadequate at home when he had to emerge from behind the shelter of his official identity and deal with things himself. Even the sex was average when they had first got together and was now frequently lacklustre. She had heard how power was such an aphrodisiac and she had expected him to be as good between the sheets as John had been and look what she had ended up with. On the occasional nights in bed that Neil turned in her direction, the lovemaking had been short and perfunctory. He might be all right , reflected George, as he lay gasping on top of her but she did not exactly feel that she was the female lead in a D H Lawrence novel as she gazed upward at the large picture above their bed.  
  
Julie Johnson was in tears as she received a letter from her Rhiannon. Since her pimp, Damian had gone out of her life, she worried how her beloved daughter was getting on. It was one thing in the first rush of guilt for Rhiannon to promise to get through college, but it was quite another thing to sustain that. It was these fears for Rhiannon that made her feel desperately that she wanted to be around her to advise her not to end up with the wrong fella as she had done with her ex. In a way, girls could be more of a worry than boys as she knew from her own experience of what she had been like.  
  
"……………I'm sticking at college still but I'm writing from a Women's Refuge. I met this boy who I thought was the answer to ,my dreams, the kind you read about in the magazines, well the kind I read anyway. He told me that he was in love with me and couldn't live without me and begged me to move in with him. I agreed to as he seemed to be the real thing. Only when I started living with him, he had this weird streak in him and would lash out without warning when he had a few too many to drink. It was as if he became a different person altogether. I did my best to understand him, I really did and tried to talk to him to get him to understand himself and he promised he would never do it again. Only he did and it was this up and down relationship I had with him. All my college friends told me that he'll never change. I agree with them now that I'm out of the relationship but I was trapped as I needed someone to love. I came to this refuge when the police were called in and I'm really getting better now. The women there are really helpful and the college are giving me time to catch up with this years course work. I'm on the Social which isn't much but is something to live on. I'm getting better now, mum, honest as I'm finding my feet. I'm sorry I never told you about all this but I knew you would feel helpless and guilty that you couldn't help me.   
  
I'll come in if you send me a VO and give my love to Auntie Julie. I've not forgotten my promise to her.   
  
Your loving daughter  
  
Rhiannon".  
  
"Kids, eh. You never stop worrying about them no matter how old they get." Julie Johnson wept into Julie Saunders's shoulder who comforted her and held her tight like she always had.   
  
Neil flung down on the dining room table today's Daily Telegraph with the latest critical headline -'Larkhall prison firebombers double suicide- has the government lost its grip?'  
  
"Just look at this headline, George. I've had to face some very awkward questions in the Cabinet about this. The one event I entrust to you and it blows up in my face," his cold voice abruptly started in on her.  
  
"When I'm in court, I do have all the paperwork I need to read before I speak so when I come home it isn't too much to ask for you to let me read the article, darling, before being cross examined," George replied, her tones empty of affection and the use of the word darling, merely a formality.   
  
George took the paper and in an unhurried way, scanned the columns of coverage. Who writes these headlines anyway, some anally retentive man with an obsession for control. I don't do, I am, George reflected to herself. She scanned the columns of political bile that banged on about the sloppy security in prisons and that the trial had been left to flounder with no sense of proper direction. She agreed with the rest of the paper that she wanted to keep her taxes down and didn't like the euro. It's that living with a career politician awakened in her liberal tendencies that she never knew that she had in her, especially as this time she could measure her own direct experience against the headlines. A quick peek over the conveniently large newspaper told her of the subtle signs of Neil's rising temper behind his cold façade.  
  
"I wouldn't worry as a week is a long time in politics. Who knows, next week the Great British Public will be loving you again," George's icy voice accentuated the sarcasm in the way that her tone climbed up and down the scale.  
  
Neil glared at George without speaking for a moment. He was having enough of this castrating bitch of a woman who had the exact way of belittling his strongly held feelings which were too strong for him to be ever able to put into words. He and George weren't getting along right now. She was turning out different from what he had wanted and a different model, softer, more pliable and more disposed to admire him as he felt was his rightful due. How long ago was it that they first met?   
  
There was something attractive and alluring about Georgia Channing when he first laid eyes on her at a charity do that they were both invited to and he was flattered in the interest that she took in him. In his eyes, they made a brilliant team, he the rising star in New Labour and she, the brilliant talented barrister whose undoubted abilities matched the perfect way that she handled social affairs. They were destined for the top until this recent crisis. It all started from his boast that this brilliant barrister could pull the Government out of an embarrassing fix. He had bragged about her to the Attorney General in an ante room at the House of Commons. It seemed a good idea at the time and it was fixed up that if Cantwell, the then Government favourite, dropped out, George was next in the running. Of course, he didn't trouble her pretty head about it as he had other matters to keep him busy. It was an understood thing between him and the Attorney General, not for anyone else's ears.   
  
"That's not good enough, George," Neil replied shortly. "I live in a world where we are expected to get results with no excuses."  
  
"You mean other people do the hard work for you to get results and you take all the glory if everything goes well and you put the blame on someone else if things go badly. I am such a useful alibi for you." George, in her last stinging attack on Neil's integrity, didn't fully register how she was causing his temper to escalate. It was the sarcastic twist in the tone that she said 'such' that rammed her point home. A part of her was still back in the time when she lived with John and they had flaming rows of operatic proportions and each could give vent to their feelings. Neil had no passionate impulse in his body apart from his insatiable ambition.  
  
"You know that's not true," Neil dismissively brushed her aside.  
  
"Neil, can you explain one thing to me," George pursued making the supreme effort to be reasonable. "If this court case was such a life or death matter, why wasn't I put on the case at the outset so that I had enough time to prepare for it and so that I didn't have to pick up the pieces after Brian Cantwell threw in the towel. Did you find out from the Attorney General just why he gave up the case and why I was told about it? Don't you think the writing was on the wall even then?"   
  
Neil's feelings of anger and frustration rocketed. A calmly reasonable George making her case was just as intolerable as a sarcastic George sticking in the knife. This was humiliating as he had always been evasive to his Cabinet colleagues when they had talked about how marvellous and supportive their wives had been and smoothed out the troubled brow with oozing sympathy when they got home from a hard day's work at the their Ministries and a hard evening's drinking in the House of Commons bar in the relentlessly competitive world. No, it wasn't the Conservative opposition they had to worry about but their own colleagues who were secretly trying to take their jobs. There was an increasing crowd of New Labour ex ministers on the back benches speculating on who would be the next minister to be replaced.   
  
"In the last war," Neil replied stiffly. "people got on with their jobs without complaining. That Battle of Britain spirit was what preserved the democratic freedoms for our generation to hand on."   
  
George laughed incredulously at that. The image of a glamorous fighter ace, Neil Houghton dressed in a blue RAF uniform, complete with goggles climbing into his Spitfire and revving his engine desperately to take off and confront the Nazi bombers above him was just too absurd to imagine.  
  
"You must be joking. You can't even change a fuse. Why only last week, you had to call out the electrician. Besides, anyone fighting a war as you put it, must by necessity be endowed with a certain amount of stamminer."  
  
"That's enough, George," Neil's choked voice tried to suppress this dangerous woman who was maliciously attacking his masculinity.   
  
"You poor, poor man. John always said that you acted like a spoilt little boy who if he didn't get his own way, went off in a sulk and he's right." George's crowning insult lashed back at him as she grew utterly sick and tired of the man who a split second instinct told her she loathed and for whom she felt a total and utter lack of respect.  
  
Something was switched on in Neil's mind that unaccountably caused him to lash out in total frustration. Maybe it was the spectacle of George going dangerously out of control that caused him to panic or the fear that in his well ordered world, one element was threatening him. Something burst in his mind and he found that he had lunged forward at George to drive away that voice and his hand must have connected with her face. It was so unlike him as he had never done that sort of thing for ages, it must be the build up of this stress in him which every medical journal said was a killer. More than that, he reassured himself, it was George of all people, taking sides with that disreputable Deed character who always mocked and challenged him even in the contemptuous way that he looked at him without speaking.  
  
George had that strange disconnected feeling in her as the pain spread outwards from the blow near her eye and looked at the stranger who had hit her. Then she turned and walked away from Neil who stood rooted to the spot like a paralysed actor in a play that had gone wrong.   
  
"You be out of my house by the time I get home tomorrow." The words leapt from her mouth without her thinking about it and she made an instinctive grab for her mobile phone.  
  
"Where are you going?" Neil asked automatically without thinking.  
  
"Somewhere, anywhere in the world where you aren't," George fired back and she thrust aside the front door without shutting it and escaped into the darkness. 


	65. Part Sixty Five

Part Sixty Five   
  
As she walked down the steps to her car, George couldn't believe he'd done it. Neil had actually struck her. Hell, she knew she could be bad on occasions but tonight hadn't been half as bad as she sometimes was. She hadn't even thrown anything. All she'd done was to protest her lack of responsibility in the Merriman/Atkins trial. If they'd really thought she could get those two off, they should have brought her in on it from the beginning. She was at an immediate disadvantage, only having a night to prepare for it, but that didn't seem to make any difference to Neil and his cronies. She stepped on the accelerator and roared out of the drive and down the road. Her cheek throbbed. She briefly took one hand off the wheel to touch the rapidly forming bruise. She winced as her fingers came in to contact with the point where that blasted signet ring she'd given him had broken the skin. She could feel the trickle of blood running down her face and strove to stem the flow with a tissue. But what was she doing, driving through London at this time of night looking like she'd been involved in a drunken brawl. She fumbled for the mobile phone in her handbag, which she'd had enough sense to grab on her way out. The realisation that there was only one person she could call didn't improve her spirits.   
  
When he answered, she said in a rush,   
  
"John, are you busy?"   
  
"I'm doing some reading for a ruling I have tomorrow. Are you in the car?"   
  
"John, I need to see you." He could hear the urgent quiver in her voice.   
  
"Is it Charlie?" He asked, referring to their daughter.   
  
"Charlie's fine," Said George. She swore as another car suddenly loomed up out of the darkness.   
  
"George, get off the phone and keep your eyes on the road. I'll come down and let you in." This was an order and she knew him well enough not to disobey.   
  
When she cruised to a stop in the carpark of the Judge's lodgings, he was waiting for her, stood under the porch. He came forward when she got out of the car, and stared at her as the security light lit up her bruised and bleeding face.   
  
"What the hell happened?" George was so relieved to finally be somewhere safe that at first she couldn't answer. "Did Lover Boy do this?" Asked John and she could hear the fury in his voice.   
  
"John, please, just let me come in. It's freezing out here." He noticed that her voice was less strident than normal, somehow sounding defeated. As they walked up to his apartment, she was utterly quiet. Realising something must be very wrong, he didn't comment on this. When George dropped in to a chair, he put a large glass of brandy in to her hands.   
  
"You're shivering," He said quietly.   
  
"I think it's what they call delayed shock," She replied, her usual level of sarcasm not reaching its normal proportions. He went upstairs, and returned with a blanket and gently tucked it round her. Mimi, the whippet, rose from her basket and lightly jumped on to George's knee. John made to remove her, but George tangled her fingers in the dog's fur, as if needing something to hold on too. When John had filled his own glass and sat down opposite her he said,   
  
"Talk to me, George."   
  
"I don't really know what I'm doing here," She said, after taking a long, eyewatering swig of brandy. "I should go," She said, putting down her glass and preparing to lift the dog from her knee. John put out a hand as if to stop her.   
  
"Calm down," He said gently. "You obviously came here for a reason. I'm assuming you and Lover Boy had a pretty monumental row." George laughed mirthlessly.   
  
"There's no point calling him that any more. I told him to be out of the house by the time I get home tomorrow. I was going to ask you if I could stay here, but I'd forgotten you don't possess anything resembling a sofa." Briefly thinking that George had probably never slept on a sofa of any kind, John smiled.   
  
"You can still stay here. I think we're both adult enough to share the same bed after all these years."   
  
"True," She said, thinking that this really was turning out to be the oddest night of her life. As she dabbed at the cut on her cheek which had begun to bleed again, John filled a glass with cold water and took a clean handkerchief from his pocket. He dipped a corner of the monogrammed square in the water and reached forward to clean away the blood. Her hand came up and halted his progress.   
  
"I'll do it," She said, her voice clearly betraying her tension at having him so close to her. When he'd returned to his chair he asked,   
  
"Was that all he did?" gesturing to her face.   
  
"You didn't seriously think I would have stayed for any more after he did this?" Her tone was incredulous.   
  
"You might not have had a choice," Said John quietly.   
  
"I left virtually as soon as he gave me this," She said, trying to put him at ease.   
  
"What on Earth were you arguing about?" Asked John, thinking that it must have been something pretty serious for this outcome.   
  
"Merriman and Atkins," George said succinctly. "I was supposed to get them off, and I didn't deliver."   
  
"Ah," He said, the pieces beginning to fit in to place. "I'm assuming the cabinet wanted to ship her back to the states to avoid the bad publicity."   
  
"That's about the size of it. Them both committing suicide didn't exactly help the situation."   
  
"George, no-one could have persuaded a jury they weren't guilty. The evidence was stacked sky high."   
  
"Always nice to have an impartial judge," Said George dryly.   
  
"Oh, come on, George, you know me better than that. I'm just saying that it would have taken a miracle, that's all." George began searching through her handbag, then remembered her cigarettes were sat at home on the coffee table.   
  
"Would Jo have left any cigarettes here by any chance?" She asked. John began looking through the clutter on the sideboard.   
  
"I wish you two would give that up," He said in mock disapproval.   
  
"No chance," Said George, taking the packet he'd found for her. As he poised the lighter, he looked in to her face. For all her bravado, she looked hurt, vulnerable and totally drained.   
  
"You look done in," He said gently. The tenderness in his voice brought brief tears to her eyes.   
  
"I'll be fine," She said, the hard edge of bitterness utterly failing to cover up how close to cracking she really was. Looking for anything to change the subject, she spied his violin case leaning up against one end of the sideboard.   
  
"Do you still play?" She asked, gesturing to one of his favourite pastimes.   
  
"When I have the time," He replied. "There's a string quintet I play with on a fairly regular basis."   
  
"And I bet none of them knows you're a Judge," She said, remembering of old how he liked the anonymity of simply being a normal man doing normal things. "You should have gone professional," Continued George.   
  
"I thought about it once," He replied, "But I think I'd have missed the people contact."   
  
"Rubbish," Said George giving him a conspiratorial smile. "You'd have loved all those groupies, women hanging off your every note. Anyway, you've only exchanged one stage for another. That's why you always question the witnesses too much. You can't bare not to be playing the leading role."   
  
"That's rich," He said grinning at her. "Coming from the woman who objects to every question."   
  
"You know I only do that with Jo."   
  
"Yeah, and she gives you as good as she gets."   
  
"You miss all the sparring, don't you."   
  
"There's nothing quite like a good intellectual fight."   
  
"I wish Neil would stick to verbal sparring. But he knows I'd win if he restricted himself to words." George was on her second large glass of brandy, and John could tell the alcohol was having the desired effect of making her open up.   
  
"Has this happened before?" He asked.   
  
"Good god, no," Replied George. "He'd have had to look for somewhere else to live if he had. If I'd thought about it, I might have known he'd resort to fists one of these days. He's like a four-year-old when he can't get his own way." Thinking that this was a fairly good description of George herself, John tried to hide a smile and failed. "Don't look at me like that," Said George. "We're talking about him not me. You're the main thing that gets him started. He stupidly assumed that because of our past, it would be relatively easy to persuade you to lean heavily on the jury." John looked outraged at this. "Oh, I know," Went on George. "But your world and his world are miles apart. The way he sees it, justice is there to be upheld when it suits them and manipulated when it doesn't."   
  
"How did you end up with such a spineless crettin?" Asked John.   
  
"I think I was bored," Replied George without any hesitation.   
  
"What are you going to do?" He asked.   
  
"I don't know," She said, again looking defeated. "I've told him to be out of the house by the time I get home tomorrow, but beyond that, I have no idea."   
  
A while later when she lay in John's large bed, wrapped snugly in a soft duvet, George listened to him washing their glasses and switching lights out downstairs. He'd found her an old T-shirt of his for her to sleep in, and she knew it made her look a little ridiculous. She lay on her right side, so that the cut on her cheek wouldn't be aggravated by the pillow. She heard him coming up the stairs, and watched as he placed the dog basket containing a sleeping Mimi under the window.   
  
"That dog's got you wrapped round her little finger," Said George with a smile.   
  
"She likes to think she has," Replied John. George listened as he prepared for bed, and watched the dog gently twitch its tail in the midst of a dream. This is utterly surreal, she thought. She hadn't shared a bed with John for years. When he joined her under the duvet, she knew this was where she'd always felt safe. But safe had never been enough for Georgia Channing. She liked the challenge of the chase too much. Oh, the sex had been fantastic, but nothing can compensate for that extra little bit of intrigue. But look where that had got her, a black eye and a broken relationship. An enormous wave of regret swept over her for what she'd put John through. She knew she'd never been an easy person to live with, only the appearance of their daughter had calmed her down. Their arguments had been monumental, until he'd learnt that the best way to deal with her was to simply ignore her outbursts. But even when she'd smashed an incredibly valuable vase, he'd never once raised his hand to her. That'd been the night she'd found out about his affair with Jo. George could remember every detail of that nightmare like it was yesterday. She'd picked Charlie up from school; she'd been six at the time. They'd decided on impulse to go to court to pay Daddy a surprise visit. George had only just pulled in to the carpark, when she'd spied John coming out of the front doors of the court, accompanied by a tall, very attractive woman. John hadn't seen her car, if he had, he'd never have kissed this woman long and hard on the steps of the court for all the world to see. George had known about his previous flings, and to be honest they hadn't worried her over much. But John and this woman, whom she'd later found out was called Jo Mills, looked, right, complete, as if no other person existed for either of them. That was the beginning of the end for her and John. From that day onwards, George had always known that any feelings of serious commitment in John were reserved solely for Jo. After watching their little display, George had put the car in to a three point turn, and roared out of the carpark. When she'd had it out with him that evening, after Charlie had been put to bed, she'd discovered that he hadn't even been aware of her presence whilst he'd bid goodbye to his latest sweetheart.   
  
"Am I really such a bitch?" She asked, still with her back to John as they lay closer than they'd ever been since that night. Hearing the slight quiver in her voice that heralded tears, he gently put his arms round her, but she still lay with her face turned away from him.   
  
"Nothing you could have done warranted what he did."   
  
"Oh, come on," Said George scornfully, her anger rising to disguise her tears. "Surely even you can remember what I'm like when I'm furious."   
  
"Yes," He said with a smile in his voice. "We were finding fragments of that Ming vase for weeks."   
  
"So, why did you never give me a black eye?"   
  
"Because, I don't believe in beating up anyone without a good reason, especially someone who couldn't even begin to match me in physical strength." George abandoned any attempt to hide her weakness.   
  
"He was so furious with me," She said in a strangled voice. "He seems to think that because of our relationship, I'm the cabinet's personal QC to do their bidding."   
  
"George, none of this is your fault."   
  
"Oh, of course not," She replied, all her bitterness turned inwards on herself.   
  
"You've got to believe it," He said softly. As she turned over and lay her head on his chest, he held her as her body shook. He didn't think he'd ever seen her quite so vulnerable, not even eighteen months ago when Charlie had been involved in and possibly hurt in that hunger striker protest.   
  
"I'm sorry," Said George, hardly able to believe she was showing him how pathetic she felt.   
  
"Don't be," He said gently. She turned away from him and groped on the bedside table for the box of tissues that sat there.   
  
"I feel so pathetic," She said, the self-disgust all too resonant.   
  
"George, this is me," He said as she dried her face. "I've seen you cry before."   
  
"You've never seen me with a beaten up face before," She said, lying back down. It seemed natural for her to slip back in to his arms, to lay her head on his firmly muscled chest.   
  
"This is like old times," He said, running his fingers gently through her hair.   
  
"No, it's not," She replied, "We're neither fighting nor making up." He laughed.   
  
"We did have some peaceful times."   
  
"Very very occasionally."   
  
"There's something else that's different from then," He said turning serious, "You're far too thin."   
  
"Rubbish," She said sleepily. Deciding for once to let her have the last word, he said nothing. As she slowly drifted to sleep, lying snugly against him, John not only wondered how George was going to deal with this, but he also prayed that Jo would forgive him having given George sanctuary. George was still the mother of his child, and if nothing else, he would always feel the need to protect her. 


	66. Part Sixty Six

Part Sixty Six   
  
Neil felt that the rest of the evening was totally unreal and was in a state of total indecision as George roared off into the dark. His first instinct was to rush off after her, but she had roared off in her car and he knew how George could drive in normal conditions and that was with all the fury and anger that came natural to her vented on her own machinery and other drivers impartially. He stopped mid step, turned and tried to sit down and think this one through calmly.  
  
George was a mature grown woman and could look after herself and so unless she phoned, there was nothing that needed to be done right then. That gave him some reassurance. He could phone the police to keep an eye on her but that would mean inconvenient questions as to why this was strictly necessary. Too many people these days asked too many questions rather than accepting his story as a Cabinet Minister and going out and doing his duty. There was no need to do anything rash.  
  
Neil poured himself a stiff whisky now that he had the run of the house and could do what he damned well liked. When he thought about it rationally, he realised that women were taking over everywhere and there comes a point where you have to take a stand if you are a man. It was the brute primitive in every human being like Desmond Morris said that burst through the civilised man, some sort of throwback instinct in him. Anyway, it really wasn't his fault what happened and anyway, the bitch had deserved it.  
  
What about Jo Channing, Neil thought with a sudden panic attack that made him spill his drink. George would be bound to run off to Daddy and would stay the night there as she had always had this childish irrational attachment to the old fogey. Suppose he were to phone him up and get in his side of the story first? He had a sudden adrenaline rush of fear that froze him to his chair. If George had not gone to Daddy, then what in hell could he say to the man as he was definitely not up to thinking of some feeble excuse as to why he had phoned. The doddering old fool wasn't above finding out that there was something suspicious and would start making enquiries. If he did nothing, there would be no untoward consequences as in a similar way, a mouse reasoned that if he stared out the increasingly bright lights of the juggernaught as he sat in the middle of the motorway then he could face out his problems.  
  
Neil Houghton automatically picked up the Daily Telegraph and looked more closely at it. On page six, it carried an article about the scandal over extortionate mobile phone charges being caused by high licence charges levied by the Department of Trade and Industry on the firms concerned and quoted the official response by Mr Neil Houghton Secretary of State for trade and Industry being quoted as saying 'Someone has got to take the difficult decisions for this country' and that a 'balanced decision had been arrived at which addressed the greater good of the country' where the 'commercial rate charged brought a handsome income into the government's coffers which helped finance the ever expanding education programme.'  
  
He threw the paper down in irritation and told himself to get a grip on the situation. He sat down and tried to review the situation calmly, rationally. What about George's friends? That was a likelier place for George to go as she would not like to admit to her darling daddy that she had failed, an of course in his mind any domestic discord was down to her unreasonable behaviour and she has, she must have, a reputation for being troublesome. Even that arch troublemaker, that Deed character, couldn't live with her.  
  
Neil smiled to himself at that thought that, unknowing to him, he was getting support from the unlikeliest of quarters.   
  
The first logical thing to do is to figure which of George's friends is going to hear all the hard luck, typical neurotic woman tear jerking stuff about how terrible he had been as a partner. If he tries to work that out, he'll know what sort of troublemaker he'll have to face. He thought long and hard and really couldn't place in his mind who George was particularly close to. Her clients came and went and George didn't keep anything around as convenient as an address book. Her mobile phone carried her contacts around with her and George had grabbed it. He tried to create a mental picture in his mind of which member of the legal profession she was particularly friendly with but his memory bank of faces and names produced no answers. All these barristers and judges, he reasoned to himself, they all talk, look and think alike in that curiously affected actorish manner except, of course, that there were more women these days. As it should be, he affirmed stoutly to himself, he is a great believer in equal opportunities as the Class of '97 'Blair babes' demonstrated and this made the House of Commons more attractive to the eye. When he thought about it, he really didn't know much about her social life apart from the social events when she would flit from one person to another, smiling and making conversation in the only way she knew how.   
  
Now that he had calmed down a bit, he thought that he might have been a little hasty. George's assets that she brought to the partnership were not to be lightly thrown aside. Her ability to charm anyone was most useful, her position as a barrister brought a bit of old fashioned respectability to their partnership as the profession had a certain quality and status about it. Besides. He was going to be out of the house if he didn't do something quickly and the edict from above was to display a certain level of respectability to improve the Party's image.   
  
Suddenly the phone rang shrilly and Neil jumped a mile. After an initial hesitation, he braced himself to answer it and be prepared for anything.  
  
"Hello George, I was going to pick your brains about a matter of law. Have you got five minutes?" An educated male voice resonated in his ear.  
  
"Neil here," he replied, feeling relieved as this was clearly a fellow barrister wanting to talk shop. "I'm afraid George is out."   
  
"It's Brian Cantwell here, Neil. If you remember, George took over from me in the Atkins Pilkinton case," Brian Cantwell explained and regretted his words. "I suppose that was a bit tactless of me, old boy, as it didn't end particularly well for the government."  
  
"Yes it was, Brian," Neil replied very coldly. It was his instinct that when he felt at his most resentful that George had flouted his wishes, to take it out on the next person who phoned if he could be safely offended and Cantwell was nothing special. "What you said was very unfortunate. If you give me your phone number, I'll ask George to phone you as I have no idea when she'll be back."  
  
Neil slammed the phone down, sweating. It felt like a ticking bomb as it could herald either George to scream abuse at him, her precious father to splutter in anger at him or some news hound, tipped off by George to cause trouble. The more he thought about it, the less he liked it as it sunk in on his mind that, after all, George was a civil barrister with an appetite for money and she could soak him financially for all he was worth. Imagine if the press got hold of this story. Suddenly George's last words 'you be out of my house by the time I get home tomorrow' leapt into his mind. Now he got really agitated. He knew George well enough that unless he did anything quick, then if he came back here tomorrow night, then George would be further inflamed. He realised that he had better get his possessions packed quickly just in case.  
  
Feverishly, he scrambled around for some spare suitcases and found them in a cubby hole under the stairs. He blew off the dust which scattered itself on the carpet and ran upstairs to his wardrobes and chest of drawers and looked in despair. There were many pairs of suits and shirts hung up on the rail and an impossibly small space to pack the clothes into. Then again, what about everything else of his scattered around the house?   
  
Eventually, he made a quick decision. He would pack the most essential items that he needed most that day and stick the suitcases in the back of his car and get help from the professionals in moving the rest. So as to not forget in the morning, he scrawled a note on a piece of paper and left it out prominently on the sideboard downstairs.  
  
"Have moved some of my personal effects out and the rest are to be collected. Neil."  
  
That made him feel better, no grovelling, nothing over emotional. He settled himself down for the night, found a bottle of sleeping tablets in the furthermost recess of the medicine cabinet, swallowed one and slept like a top.  
  
In the morning, he turned over in bed but there wasn't the familiar shape beside him. Woozily, he collected his wits together as he wasn't used to taking a sleeping tablet and, in the morning, he had trouble holding anything or getting out of bed. It was daylight and, with an effort, he struggled to climb into the uniform and the mindset of a Secretary of State of Trade and Industry. He felt better and more secure, his tie pulled up and anchored to the top shirt button and his smoothest , most expensive suit. He made a cup of strong coffee to clear the fog from his brain and sharpen his wits. As he drank his coffee, his mind went back to when George took a phone call and had the infernal nerve to pollute the house with tobacco smoke. He was at one with professional medical opinion on this issue that he did not want to be a passive smoker and have his lungs polluted. She was on the phone to that Deed character, and he was no doubt gloating about the trial result as he thought at the time. Perhaps that disreputable character had a more sinister agenda and was planning to steal George back from him. He saw the way they behaved with each other and the more he thought about this, the whole thing seemed like a put up job. His face tightened with anger as he slung his suitcases into the car and set off for a day's work. He needed to play his cards carefully, do what was necessary to get George back and, if that didn't work, his worst suspicions would be realised. That man had no moral principles with women, it was well known. 


	67. Part Sixty Seven

Part Sixty Seven   
  
When George awoke on the Thursday morning, she could hear John moving about downstairs. She lay for a while, trying to persuade her senses in to some sort of order. When he reappeared, he was carrying a cup of tea and followed by Mimi, who immediately jumped on to the bed. George put out a hand and began stroking her.   
  
"She doesn't need any encouragement," He said, handing George the cup of tea as she sat up. She looked very child-like in the early morning sunlight that peeped through the thick curtains. With her hair tousled, and her body only covered by a t-shirt that was clearly too big for her, she looked even more vulnerable than she had done last night. George took a grateful swig of the tea. As both of them were aware of George's almost inability to speak first thing in the morning, they barely exchanged a word. She'd always hated John for being able to be totally coherent at any time of the day or night. As she listened to him take a shower, she drank the rest of her tea and scratched Mimi's ears. She knew she couldn't even think about dealing with the ramifications of last night until her brain had fully woken up. As John emerged wrapped in a towel, George finally dragged herself out of bed. He observed her still extremely pretty legs which descended from the t-shirt like pillars of loveliness. John privately thought she looked enchanting in that t-shirt which barely extended to midthigh and clung to her small, jutting breasts. George walked over to the mirror and stared aghast at her face.   
  
"that's going to look wonderful in court this morning," She said, all the bitterness of last night reasserting itself. He walked over to her and turned her face towards him.   
  
"Concealer or something similar might cover it."   
  
"Well, I don't have any, not here anyway." Whilst George was in the shower, John had an idea. As it was getting on for eight o'clock, he picked up the phone.   
  
"Jo, it's me," He said when she answered.   
  
"this is a nice surprise," She said, in that slightly huskier early morning voice that he found so sexy.   
  
"Please could you do me a favour?"   
  
"John, you never say please, it must be serious." He laughed.   
  
"I do say please, sometimes. On your way in to the office this morning, could you come here first, and bring some concealer or whatever you women use to cover up facial disfigurements you'd rather others didn't see."   
  
"John, you're talking in riddles. Who did you get in to a fight with?"   
  
"Not for me," He said in disgust, "For George." Then, lowering his voice he said, "She turned up here last night after having a row with Lover Boy, looking like she'd gone a couple of rounds with Frank Bruno. I had to let her stay here."   
  
"Give me about an hour, with rush hour traffic."   
  
"You're a star, Jo."   
  
When George appeared downstairs, wearing yesterday's clothes and dragging a brush through her wet hair, she looked nothing like the very together, utterly sophisticated woman he knew. John was seated at the table, eating toast and reading the morning paper. George poured herself a glass of grapefruit juice and peeled an orange.   
  
"I rang Jo," John said, after finishing the article he was reading. "She's going to drop off some concealer for you on her way to work." George put down the segment of orange she was about to eat.   
  
"That's all I need," She said. "Having to be grateful to your girlfriend." John ignored the jibe, knowing that anger and irritation were George's way of hiding how she was really feeling.   
  
"How does it feel?" He asked, gesturing to her face.   
  
"Bloody sore," Was her only comment. A while later there was a knock on the door.   
  
"Mrs. Mills for you, My Lord," Said the man who had witnessed many comings and goings from this particular judge's room. George's immense feeling of insecurity increased a thousand fold when she caught sight of Jo, looking smart, professional and totally unruffled. Sensing the arrival of a friend, Mimi bounded over to stand wagging her tail at Jo's feet. Jo gave George a quick assessing glance, taking in the now dark purple bruise and healing cut under her left eye.   
  
"You should get that looked at," Said Jo as a form of greeting.   
  
"Absolutely not," Said George firmly. "The fewer people who know about this the better." The unspoken affirmation was that George would really rather Jo hadn't had to know about it.   
  
"Oh, and what are you going to say to anyone with a pair of eyes and half a brain?" Asked John, thinking that George must be living in cloud cuckoo land if she thought she could get through the next couple of days without anyone noticing.   
  
"That I walked in to a door," Said George flatly. John threw down the paper in disgust.   
  
"That's the oldest and most overused line in the book, George. You're a barrister, which means you'll be aware of every explanation, every apology he'll use to worm his way back in."   
  
"And you're making me feel like a bloody witness," Threw back George.   
  
"Well, go back to Lover Boy and one day you will be."   
  
"John, just give us a minute," Said Jo quietly, trying to defuse their rapidly spiraling argument.   
  
"No," He said refilling his cup with coffee. "I'm not saying anything she doesn't know herself deep down." Jo looked at him stonily.   
  
"John, just take Mimi out or something, because right now I don't think you're helping the situation." Knowing when he was beaten, John stood up, clipped a lead on to a delighted Mimi, and walked out closing the door none too quietly. Jo dug in her handbag and put a tube of concealer down on the table.   
  
"That should help," She said.   
  
"Thank you," Was George's subdued reply. She moved to stand in front of the sideboard, over which hung an enormous gilt-edged mirror. She began applying the cream to her face, wincing as her fingers came in contact with the bruise.   
  
"I'm amazed," Said George, half sarcastic half meaning it. "You've not asked what happened. That's all John really wanted to know last night."   
  
"Well, I'm not John," Said Jo succinctly. "And I think the rest is obvious. It's also absolutely none of my business." George turned to face her in astonishment, the tube of cream in her left hand, and her right poised in midair to apply some more. Staring at Jo assessingly for a moment she turned back to the mirror.   
  
"Has this happened before?" Asked Jo.   
  
"No," Was George's curt reply, and Jo could almost feel all the barriers going back up again.   
  
"What are you going to do?" Asked Jo gently. That was it for George. She'd almost been courting an excuse to sound off at anyone since Neil had done this, and ironically it was the quiet, levelheaded Jo who made her snap. George weeled round, and the pain in her eyes hit Jo and rooted her to the spot.   
  
"Why is it," She began, the clipped, aristocratic bite more prominent than ever, "That you and John seem to think I have all the answers. I don't have the first idea how to deal with this or what I'm going to do, because funnily enough I've never been in this situation before. You've got absolutely no idea, have you. That bastard, who calls himself the secretary of state for trade, has taken away the one thing I value most, my pride. I've got to go in to court this morning, looking no better than a common whore who's just come off the night shift at King's Cross. That isn't how I usually prefer to defend my clients. He's taken away any shred of dignity I might have had. I've always known Neil had no scruples, but I totally misjudged the situation because not once did I ever think he'd go this far. He gave me this, purely because I couldn't come up with a good reason as to why I hadn't been able to get Merriman and Atkins found not guilty. It had to be you, didn't it. It just had to be you and John who between you managed to first convince a jury they were guilty, and second, send them down for the longest stretch possible. You are the biggest rival I've ever had, in and out of court, and you just had to be there on the one occasion I needed to succeed, and yes, before you so kindly point it out, I know that's the price of sleeping with a cabinet minister. John warned me at the time, and though I'm loathed to admit it, he was right. I suppose you think this is all I deserve." This last thing was said in such a hollow, defeated voice, that Jo immediately forgave any inference that George's black eye was in some way her fault. George had needed to get this out of her system, Jo knew that. As George turned away from her, Jo caught sight of the hitherto unwitnessed Channing tears running unheeded down her face. She fumbled blindly for the nearest chair, and her body seemed to collapse in to it. Jo had never seen George this broken, this defeated, and for a moment she stood stock still, simply watching her. Then, realising that there was at least some practical thing she could do, she went upstairs in search of a box of tissues. Taking brief note of the unmade bed where John and George had clearly slept last night, she picked up the box from the bedside table and returned downstairs.   
  
She put the tissues down in front of George, and took a seat opposite her.   
  
"John thinks this is so cut and dried," Said George, taking some tissues from the box.   
  
"That's because he thinks the distinction between right and wrong should decide everything. Even after all his years of trying to uphold the law, he sometimes fails to see that it doesn't always work like that."   
  
"I told Neil to be out of the house by the time I get home, but even if he is, which I doubt, I can't just move on and forget he ever existed."   
  
"I know," Said Jo gently, lighting a cigarette for George and then one for herself.   
  
"Bet you never thought you'd see me crumble before your eyes, did you," Said George, taking a grateful drag.   
  
"We all do it, George. The secret is not to be afraid of it." George laughed mirthlessly.   
  
"I remember the time John told me I was maladjusted. Oh, I wouldn't worry," She said, observing Jo's slight wince at John's callous remark. "I suspect he had cause to at the time." On hearing the unmistakable sounds of John and Mimi returning, George, realising that she'd inadvertently wiped mascara over her face, grabbed her handbag and Jo's tube of hopeful cover up and fled upstairs to the bathroom.   
  
When John appeared, he took in the box of tissues on the table and George's absence.   
  
"Is she all right?" He asked, removing Mimi's lead.   
  
"No," Replied Jo, stubbing out her cigarette. "Not very."   
  
"I'm going to ban those things from here," He said, gesturing to the ashtray.   
  
"You wouldn't get away with it," Said Jo with a smile. "For a start, you wouldn't see anywhere near enough of me if you did."   
  
"I suppose it's worth the concession," He said, leaning down to kiss her. When they heard George returning they broke apart. George took one look at John and smirked, the first sign of a smile they'd seen all day.   
  
"What?" He said, staring at her. Jo also looked at what had caught George's attention and laughed. "What is wrong with the pair of you?" He asked in exasperation. "Have I got butter on my chin?"   
  
"No," Drawled George. "Lipstick." He grabbed a napkin off the table and furiously scrubbed at his face.   
  
"I'd half a mind to let you go in to court looking like that," Said George.   
  
"that would have made an interesting story in The Evening Standard," Put in Jo. George handed her back the tube of concealer.   
  
"Thank you," George said, her eyes for once looking straight in to Jo's, not something they usually did, and Jo knew the thank you was more for listening and not judging than anything else. As they walked out of the lodgings, Jo left to drive to her office.   
  
"I'll see you later for that ruling," She said.   
  
"Come earlier and have lunch," He suggested. As he watched Jo drive away and George retrieve her papers which she'd fortunately put in the car the night before, knowing that with her dislike of mornings anything could be forgotten, John wondered just what would happen to her. George wasn't very good at being alone, but if she didn't let Lover Boy worm his way back under her skin, that was exactly what she'd be.   
  
Around one o'clock, George had finished talking to her client and was walking towards the exit. She was exhausted, more emotionally than physically. She could have sworn that every member of the jury had looked curiously at her face, wondering just what this particular QC had been up too. But before she could reach the doors that led outside, Neil Haughton, the secretary of state for trade accosted her.   
  
"George," He said, coming over to her. "We need to talk."   
  
"No we don't," Said George perfectly calmly. "I think we said everything there is to say last night." He tried to put his hand on her shoulder, to stop her walking away from him.   
  
"Don't touch me!" She hissed.   
  
"Georgia, darling, I'm sorry," He weadled.   
  
"That's what you'd tell a barrister in cross examination, is it?" She threw back at him.   
  
"George, you're not going to take this to court, are you?" He asked, in a tone that clearly told her he thought this notion was utterly preposterous.   
  
"I haven't decided what I'm going to do with you yet," She said. "Just look at me. Look at what I had to put up with in court this morning. You did that, nobody else."   
  
"Where did you stay last night?"   
  
"That's absolutely none of your business."   
  
"You stayed here, didn't you?" He asked in disgust. "You stayed with Deed."   
  
"what I do to protect myself in a crisis has nothing whatsoever to do with you." Despite the fury in her tone, she was still managing to stay fairly quiet. But she hadn't noticed the silent, stealthy approach of John. Suddenly, he swung Neil Haughton round and pushed him up against the wall.   
  
"Now, listen to me, Haughton," He said, the anger evident in his still cultured tones. "You do anything like that to George again and I'll have you doing time in the Scrubs. Is that clear?"   
  
"Still fighting her cause, I see," Drawled Neil. "How does Jo Mills feel about that." One of John's hands tightened around Neil's throat.   
  
"John, stop it," Said George, though knowing it was utterly futile. he lifted a fist as if to hit John in the face, and George caught a glint of the signet ring that had given her that cut. But with lightening reflexes, John caught Neil's fist before it could hit him.   
  
"Is that how you believe in sorting everything out that doesn't quite go your way?"   
  
Jo, arriving for her lunch appointment with John, walked up the steps and through the main doors. Taking in the situation and a watchful crowd in an instant, she walked swiftly over to John, grabbed hold of his arm and frog marched him away. He turned on her, his eyes still blazing with fury.   
  
"What the hell did you do that for?" He said.   
  
"I'm trying to stop you from getting in to more trouble than usual," She said.   
  
"He needed teaching a lesson," John protested.   
  
"Not by you," Insisted Jo. "John, this is George's fight, not yours."   
  
"Oh, and like she'll ever do anything about it."   
  
"Even if she doesn't," Continued Jo. "that isn't your decision to make."   
  
"He was hassling her, trying to persuade her to forgive and forget, and she was just going to let him."   
  
"I doubt that very much," Jo said, as they sat down on one of the seats that filled the foyer.   
  
"He should be in a cell," John wouldn't let up.   
  
"Oh, grow up, John," Said Jo, finally losing her patience with him. "He's a cabinet minister, not a sixteen-year-old involved in a drunken brawl. Even if George did pursue this legally, it wouldn't be allowed to get anywhere and you know it." 


	68. Part Sixty Eight

Part Sixty Eight   
  
Neil Haughton slipped discreetly out of the court building after the unseemly brawl with Deed. He hoped that no one had seen him pinned up against the wall by him as he would never live it down. His first instinct was to straighten his tie which had become an S shaped crumpled strip of material thanks to Deed's hand round his throat. He needed that smooth veneer which he could show the world how in control of himself he was, and everyone else he had to deal with. This unpleasantness could become damaging, he reflected. Deed would be the sort of person with no shame about spreading the story round his cronies in the legal profession about his domestic troubles of last night. He knew well enough from the huge gossiping chamber that was the House of Commons how bad news travelled fast and some rag like Private Eye would be swift to spread it further with its own despicable brand of smear and insinuation.  
  
He had to contain the public damage which this sort of thing might start. The whole thing was getting out of hand and he felt like there was a ticking bomb just waiting to explode.He had seen it before in the gossip he had traded round the bar at the House of Commons where he had heard the inside stories of how one minister after another had fallen from grace as the simmering scandal that had brewed for months unknown to the public had finally boiled over. He enjoyed a tasty morsel of scandal as much as the next person but not at his expense, thank you very much. After all, the Attorney General was not going to be one of his friends now as George had failed to deliver on such a crucial case for his own reputation as a go getter.  
  
The thought came to mind with a flash of brilliance which made him feel much better about himself. He knew that in the final analysis, he would come up with an idea which all it needed was a bit of clever footwork. He could use the Attorney General's underlings, Sir Ian Rochester and Lawrence James to help him out. He knew that they hated that Deed character like poison and were looking out for him to put one foot wrong to bring him to book. What about what he knew as his long standing association with his paramour, Jo Mills and at the same time, starting a squalid affair with George They would love that one and all he is asking for in return is to put in a good word with the attorney General and keep him off his back. Just how vindictive George would be in having him prosecuted for assault and slapping an injunction order on him would be unpleasant. He had to defend, above all else, his public reputation.  
  
Roisin put on her coat as the school bell rang and she could hear the cheering sound of children and the clatter of heels down the corridors. As she rounded the corner, she felt both hands grabbed by Michael and Niamh.  
  
"My children," She greeted them in her accustomed exuberant fashion having been nagged at by both Niamh and Michael for forever embarrassing them by greeting them with 'my babies' as she used to. With their friends looking on, they used to squirm with embarrassment when she used to say this. Roisin didn't mind however making this compromise. On this sunny September day, she was full of the simple pleasures of life as she walked on to the car, both children swinging on her arms.. She wasn't one for joining the rest of the mothers standing outside the school gates exchanging gossip. She smiled warmly on everyone in general and the others thought that, though she kept herself to herself, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing and that she was obviously devoted to her children. It was known that she had separated from her husband which wasn't uncommon but on the occasion that he used to turn up, he was bad tempered and unfriendly.  
  
Roisin manoeuvred her car into the long line of cars all coming from the school and sped her way back to the home where there was children's television and a warm fire to flop down in front of. Everything was cosy and welcoming at their house.  
  
"Hiya, kids," Cassie's cool but welcoming voice and friendly smile greeted the others when she came in later from work.  
  
"Mrs Edwards wants us to write a story with pictures of the most exciting and dangerous thing that has happened to our parents. Can I write about the time that you and mum rescued that man from the fire."  
  
"You haven't got any problems with writing about mum and me in prison, Niamh?"   
  
Cassie asked seriously. She recalled the moment when Roisin with real humanity and a force of personality took command in that moment of horror to urge them to push a profusely bleeding Neil Grayling on an improvised trolley through what seemed a wall of flames.  
  
"I got a gold sticker the time I wrote about mum when she first went to prison," Said Niamh. "I'm lucky that I've got something good to write about."  
  
"Good girl," approved Cassie using the very words she swore, as a teenager, she would never say, having taken a great delight in being bad.   
  
"Will you help me with the pictures. What did you both look like when you came out of the fire."  
  
"Our faces were blackened, our hands were burnt," Cassie built up to a dramatic climax, "……….and my makeup looked really terrible. I couldn't look in the mirror for weeks." Cassie laughed to general amusement, sending up her well known vanity.  
  
Michael waylaid Roisin with his maths homework and Roisin's eyes tried to focus at the book thrust before her eyes wondering why they had changed the maths since her day at school and made it so difficult for parents to understand.   
  
"Did you see much of Aunt Yvonne while we were away?" Niamh asked presently as the four of them snuggled down on their large comfy settee.  
  
"Yeah, loads," smiled Cassie. "Can't you tell by the suntan? I could make a habit of her lifestyle, drinks by the swimming pool, nice house, great company." Her eyes looked dreamy, thinking of games of spin the bottle in a life far removed from the cosy domesticity. Now the kids were back home, it gave her that comforting feeling of completeness in her life but a holiday away from responsibilities was exciting.  
  
Sir Ian was cloistered in his office, gloomily studying notes that had been passed to them concerning the activities of one Miss Charlotte Deed who was a law student. It was, of course, not unknown for occasional notes to be passed to them concerning the transgressions of law students who would in time become the the up and coming barristers of tomorrow. Usually, it reported nothing more than that they had become totally plastered at some night club and had got into a drunken affray with the local constabulary. That was a natural process of over exuberant youth sowing their wild oats which, in time, was something they grew out of. Not that he had any skeletons in his closet, himself. He had always behaved like a gentleman. Whereas Deed's voluminous file showed the fellow to be a total reprobate from starting from when he was a spectacularly wild and dissolute law student who was only saved from early ruination by a benevolent and foolhardy head of the college. And now there was going to be another Deed let loose on his department in the near future. Whoever said 'in the long term, we are all dead' was merely burying his head in the sand like an ostrich.  
  
A discreet knock on the door heralded the entrance of Neil Houghton who, unusually for him, was smiling pleasantly at him.  
  
"Ian, old man, I was wondering if you would help me with a small private matter. I trust that what I'm going to tell you will be strictly confidential," Came the tone of voice which was curiously ingratiating and yet took his consent for granted. This was not the normal tones of the man who however friendly, let him know all the time just who had the whip hand.  
  
"It depends on what you mean, Neil," He replied cautiously. "You had better explain."   
  
"I've just had a bit of a disagreement with George Channing and, between you and me, she took it rather personally. I offered to make up for anything which I may have done wrong but there is no changing her mind. You know how unreasonable and bad tempered she can get."  
  
For once, the man is sweating, Sir Ian noticed. I thought politicians never sweated and are a breed apart.  
  
"And where do I come into the picture," Sir Ian asked, having the feeling that he had not heard a tenth of the story as yet.  
  
"The truth is, Ian, I wouldn't put it past George to take out an injunction and to pursue a charge of assault against me. Mind you," Neil hastily rushed onwards to skate over the unpleasant sounds of the words that he was uttering, "it may not come to that but forwarned is forarmed so they say and I would appreciate it if anything that might happen you could keep low key and out of the public eye. ."  
  
Sir Ian paused for a second before replying. He looked closely at Neil's face, noticing the way the man couldn't look him straight in the eye but kept looking shiftily away. The man will have been through the 'sincerity school' of training for TV appearances, the appearance of candour in the voice, the 'look you straight in the eye' earnest conviction, just the right appearance of reliability like any other cheap politician. For all this, I wouldn't buy a used car off this man.   
  
"Just exactly what happened between you and George, Neil. I need to know the truth before you ask me to do anything." Sir Ian's voice was sharper, and without even trying he was more assertive in his quiet way than was normally his style. This was ironic as in the past, he had desperately sought to be proud and masterful in his public dealings and had only succeeded in coming over as petulant.   
  
"Well, er, I was telling George that the Atkins Pilkinton trial has let us in for a lot of bad publicity, your department especially. I was only remarking that she ought to have made a better showing and not let the side down. You know that well enough." Neil's ingratiating tones eagerly solicited his support.  
  
"I know exactly how George Channing performed in the trial. I was there in the public gallery most of the time, watching," Sir Ian replied drily.  
  
"There you are, old man. You know how poorly she performed."  
  
"I will not comment to her ex-partner on a barrister whose reputation I believe to be perfectly sound, if unlucky in a string of recent cases. It would be indelicate. So what happened between the two of you?" Sir Ian's response was frosty. After all he was only a direct witness of the trial of everything that this man was talking about, second hand.  
  
"She not only laughed in my face but made a personal remark and had the cheek to quote that Deed character in support. I felt that this was a put up job. I had a run in with him at court when I was asking George to patch up our differences and he did his usual 'knight in shining armour' routine, suspiciously so," Neil finished with a sneer.  
  
"So what did you do to George that leads you to believe that she will take legal action against you, Neil?" Sir Ian   
  
"I happened to hit her and she ran off. Back to Deed so I now understand."  
  
"Wait a minute," Sir Ian broke in. "I don't know about you but I was brought up to believe that you do not ever hit a woman. This is something you just don't do under any circumstances. There is absolutely no excuse for such behaviour. "  
  
"It's not like you to take such a high and mighty attitude, Ian. You and your lackey Lawrence James are quite willing to do the Attorney General's bidding at the drop of a hat or even before the hat falls." Neil's face darkened as this spineless man was presuming all of a sudden to take the high moral ground with him.   
  
"I do the Attorney General's bidding and not yours, Neil. If you don't like what I say, perhaps you had better take it up with him." Sir Ian smiled tightly, knowing full well that if he had felt comfortable in doing that in the first place, he would have done so. "As you know, I am separated from Lady Rochester and, no matter how many arguments we had before we finally separated, I never once laid a hand on her, not even when she flaunted her affair with Deed."  
  
"Wait a minute, we can do a deal ,Ian. Let us not be hasty. It seems to me that Deed, in carrying on an affair both with George and Jo Mills is riding for a fall and this can be to both of our advantages. Think of it." Neil eagerly pursued his point with all the only real conviction he could ever summon up, self interest.  
  
"The whole business is compromised and tainted, Neil, by your first hitting Mrs. Channing. We have no definite proof that Deed is having an affair with her. Besides, all I have heard and I have seen with my eyes in the trial is the most violent antipathy between the two of them. It would be unlikely if your fisticuffs will have driven George into Deed's arms and ironic if it were actually the case. I absolutely refuse to touch this business," Sir Ian spoke contemptuously.  
  
Neil turned on his heel, stung by the image of George that Sir Ian's words conjured up and infuriated by the man's unexpectedly stubborn refusal. He slammed the door behind him. At least the door daren't argue with him.  
  
Sir Ian turned back to his work, curiously lighter of heart. It was not often he acted this way and, unaccountably, he felt good about himself. 


	69. Part Sixty Nine

Part Sixty Nine   
  
On the Friday morning, one week after the funeral, two weeks since the end of the trial and exactly four weeks since she'd first gone to Yvonne's for dinner, Karen was sitting at her desk, preparing for several induction interviews she had to do that day. There seemed to have been an upsurge in the amount of women being sentenced to fairly lengthy stays in prison. She briefly wondered if this was as a result of the blazing hot weather that had taken over most people's lives throughout July and August. Heat always creates a rise in bad temper and therefore a dramatic increase in spur of the moment violent crimes. Finding that she had half an hour to spare before the new inmates began arriving to see her, Karen left her office and walked down on to the wing. There was something slightly comforting about the sight of the two Julies, one up on the 2's and one down in the association area, mopping away with gusto. Karen found herself thinking that her wing wouldn't be quite the same once they left, though that wouldn't be for another few years yet. As sad as this notion was, they'd been part of Larkhall since her arrival, two of the fixtures and fittings so to speak. Tina was sat at one of the tables, clearly wrestling over some work for one of her education classes. After her initial reluctance, Tina had been persuaded to take up education again in an effort to ensure her some sort of employment once she got out, which wouldn't be all that long now. She called to Karen as she passed.   
  
"Miss, have you got a minute?" Karen stopped next to her.   
  
"What is it, Tina?"   
  
"Yesterday, I got given this for homework, only I've forgotten how she said to do it," She said, clearly talking about her tutor. Taking a seat beside her, Karen looked over her shoulder at the GCSE Maths textbook.   
  
"It's a very long time since I did Maths at school, Tina, but I'll try anything once."   
  
"Only, you're always faffing about with budgets, at least that's what Miss Barker always says, so I figured you'd have to be good at this." Thinking that Tina had a valid point, Karen glanced at the simple algebra problem Tina was working on and attempted to explain it to her.   
  
"But what I don't understand," Said Tina after a while. "Is when you have say 12X and 3Y, what does X and Y actually mean?"   
  
"They don't actually mean anything," Replied Karen, "X and Y are simply there to make the two values separate from each other."   
  
"So, what's the point of that then?" Asked Tina, clearly mystified. Karen smiled.   
  
"Would it help you to understand it better if they meant something tangible, something you could actually see?"   
  
"Yeah, I think so." Karen stood up and walked over to the servery counter, returning with a handful of forks and teaspoons. with the use of these prison issue bits of plastic, she was able to explain the simpler points of algebra to Tina in a manner easier for her to grasp. As she left her at the table, pushing the plastic cutlery around to help her answer the list of problems the tutor had set her, Karen fondly remembered the times she'd helped Ross with his homework. If only he'd let her help him now. She would if he asked for it, if he really wanted the help, but he didn't. He was insisting on having his independence yet making no move to do anything with his life.   
  
"You should have been a teacher, Miss," Said Julie Johnston, coming over with her mop and bucket, clearly having watched the little scene.   
  
"Thirty fourteen-year-olds who clearly don't want to be there?" Said Karen with a slight shake of the head, "No thanks."   
  
"Sounds a bit like here," observed Julie.   
  
"How's Rhiannon?" Asked Karen, remembering the mouthy sixteen-year-old who'd been in for shop lifting.   
  
"Well, she's got herself a job and has gone back to college," Replied Julie, "But I got a letter from her this week saying she'd been living with some bloke who was knocking her around. She's left him now though, thank god."   
  
"Men, eh," Said Karen, in clear criticism of the entire male population.   
  
"Yeah," Replied Julie, beginning to mop the floor of the servery, "It's no wonder so many girls change sides." A soft smile crossed Karen's face as she thought of her budding relationship with Yvonne. They'd not seen too much of each other over the last week, and they certainly hadn't made love since the end of the trial, but Karen knew this would pick up again when the time was right. Simply knowing the other was there, in thought if not in body, seemed to be enough for the moment. Yvonne was struggling to sort herself out after Ritchie's death, and Karen was quite prepared to give her as much time and space as she needed. She was brought back to the present when Julie asked,   
  
"Have you heard how Yvonne is, Miss? Only we heard you was at court with her all through the trial. Me and Julie was going to ring her, but we didn't like to intrude."   
  
"I'm sure she'd love to hear from you," Replied Karen. "I think she could do with knowing that her friends are there for her right now."   
  
"Oh, right. Well, we might give her a ring later then."   
  
"Have you seen Denny?" Asked Karen, realising that one of the usual group of inmates was missing. Julie called up this enquiry to Julie Saunders who was still up on the 3's, but came to look over the rail.   
  
"Try the gym. She said something about wanting to kick the shit out of someone and that at least she wouldn't get any more time if it was a punch bag." As Karen walked off towards the gym, she got the feeling that her round this morning had felt like she was checking on her flock, her brood, her little clan of whom she was in charge. This was ridiculous, she sternly told herself. After all, most of them were fully grown women and in some cases far better at looking after themselves than she had ever been.   
  
As Karen approached the gym, she could hear Denny's voice, clearly screaming insults at some hopefully imaginary being. She opened the door slightly, not wanting to startle Denny when she was obviously in a mood for violence. Denny was laying in to one of the punch bags, really giving it hell with both fists and one of her feet. As Karen watched her, she became aware that Denny was treating the punch bag as if it were Snowball. There were tears running freely down Denny's face, and she was letting go all her rage, not just for Shaz's death, but clearly for Snowball having taken the easy way out. Slowly, very slowly, Karen approached her. She didn't say anything, didn't try to interrupt Denny as she thought this was something Denny had needed to do for a long time. For Denny, raging was a necessary part of the grieving process. As Karen stood and watched from the sidelines, a line from John Grisham's The Pellican Brief came to mind.   
  
"The soul needs a brief, very intense period of grieving, then it moves to the next phase. But it must have the pain. It must suffer without restraint before it can move on." It was a while ago that Karen had read this book, but the quote seemed to fit. When Shaz had been killed, Denny hadn't been able to go through this initial, necessary phase of grieving. Karen was forced to admit that this was mainly because Denny had been housed on the same wing as Shaz's killer and so had been forcefully reminded of the brutal way in which Shaz had died every day since. It seemed that Denny was only able to as Grisham had put it, "Grieve without restraint", once Shaz's killer had also died. When Denny finally ran out of energy, she slid to the floor, great tearing sobs wracking her entire body. Knowing that it was now safe to approach her, Karen knelt down beside Denny and put her arms round her. Not knowing or not caring who it was, Denny clung to Karen as if some invisible force were trying to tare her away. Karen murmured words of comfort until Denny eventually began to calm down. Realising that Denny had hit crisis point, Karen gently helped her to her feet and took her arm to lead her out of the gym. As they walked along the wing, Sylvia appeared.   
  
"Blood, where've you been? You should be stuffing envelopes."   
  
"Denny's going to my office with me," Karen smartly replied. "And she won't be stuffing any envelopes for the rest of the day. Is that clear?"   
  
"Why, what's wrong with her?" Asked Sylvia scornfully.   
  
"Sylvia, is it totally beyond your capability to occasionally show a small amount of sensitivity?"   
  
"The likes of Denny Blood wouldn't know sensitivity if it banged them up and through away the key," Sylvia observed.   
  
"Well, it's lucky for Denny that I don't agree with you," Said Karen, letting herself and Denny through the gate at the end of the wing and walking towards her office.   
  
Once Denny had been seated in a chair and handed a box of tissues, Karen lit them both a cigarette. She had known this time might come, when Denny would need to release all her pain, break a hole in the badly constructed and maintained dam of her feelings, and she'd been ready for it. Denny needed to do this, as in her own way Yvonne was doing. But unlike Denny, Yvonne had been allowed to begin her grieving process immediately, instead of having to wait until the cause of her grief was dead and gone. Karen took a chair near Denny and simply waited. This wounded child needed no prompting, for her story would spill out of her soon enough. Karen did not have to wait long.   
  
"Shaz was the only one who ever believed in me right from the start," She began shakily. "I didn't have to prove myself to her, I wasn't useful to her, she just liked me. No-one had ever done that, not even my own mother. She was the craziest girl I ever knew, but she was mine. She'd only been in here two days when we snuck out and she made Bodybag think the wing had a ghost." Remembering the episode of the supposed poltergeists or gremlins, Karen briefly smiled. "Shaz was a total nutter, but none of that mattered. Even when I got out for that six months with Shell, Shaz still forgave me. But then she had that run in with Maxi and nearly got fitted up for killing Yvonne, and that's where everything went wrong. She had a score to settle with Maxi after that, and nothing was going to stop her. Maxi wanted that fight as much as Shaz did, but no-one thought Maxi would top herself. I mean, she was a Purvis and they didn't do things like that. When Shaz got ghosted, she couldn't even write to me because Bodybag kept binning her letters. I only knew because Babs rescued a few of them for me. Then my mum died, without even once coming off the drink or trying to see me again. When I found out Shaz was coming in on the open day, it was like I couldn't see any further than that. It was the only thing I cared about. She brought in some magic mushrooms with her and we got stoned. We was on this boat, and we could see the stars. I ain't ever been anywhere so beautiful. We could feel the waves, gently rocking the boat, and Shaz kept saying I had to save her from the sharks." At this beautiful illustration of a drug-induced fantasy, Karen again found herself thinking of Grisham and The Pelican Brief, of the law student Darbi Shaw, who had escaped from everything she feared to the small harbour of Charlotte Amilie on the Caribbean island of St. Thomas. This was in effect what Shaz and Denny had done, escaped by way of a few magic mushrooms to their own sweet, safe haven. But Denny's story worked in reverse to that of the legendary Darbi Shaw. Denny's began with pain, with the soft, seductive twilight in the middle, followed by even more pain. Darbi Shaw had almost been killed alongside her lover, but had been spared by the mere fact that she refused to get in the car with a man intent on driving under the influence. Denny ought to have been killed alongside Shaz in the grand scheme of things, and had only been spared because she had a higher tolerance to illegal drugs than Shaz did. The slightly mutated similarities and differences of these two stories struck Karen as odd, as if some writer way up there had jumbled up the facts. It was almost as if the interfering hand of some unknown deity had handed out to both Darbi Shaw and Denny Blood the haven to which they could escape at a time of crisis, and the guilt of being spared only by a chance of fate when their lover's by coincidence were killed amidst enormous explosions. There, they parted company, the fiction and the fact. Darbi Shaw spent two weeks running the length and breadth of America, hiding from the FBI, the CIA and a serial terrorist named Carmelle. Denny Blood on the other hand was tormented for more than a year by having to live within close proximity to the one who had caused Shaz's death. Strange though that one story had been about a law student and the other a criminal.   
  
"What did you want to happen to Snowball, Denny?" Karen asked softly.   
  
"I wanted her to suffer, like my Shaz suffered."   
  
"Do you not think that maybe she did? It's not every day that people commit suicide."   
  
"You ain't been in the job long enough if you think that, Miss. Snowball cut her wrists because she was shit scared of spending another twenty odd years in this dump. She still hadn't got it in to her thick head that she killed Shaz, and almost killed a load of others. She thought that because she didn't mean it, it wasn't her fault. I just hope she's suffering wherever she is now, but I doubt it. Things like that never happen to them that deserve it most, Crystal told me that. She came out with a load of bollocks most of the time, but there'd be the odd thing that made sense."   
  
"Where do you see yourself going from here?" Asked Karen, knowing it was a stupid question, but needing to ask it.   
  
"The only one as ever really loved me ain't here no more, so I don't know."   
  
"I know someone who needs you now a lot more than you seem to think she does, Yvonne." Denny briefly cast a wistful gaze at the packet of cigarettes and Karen handed her one.   
  
"She's got Lauren, innit," Said Denny succinctly, taking a long drag.   
  
"Yes, she has," conceded Karen, "But that doesn't mean she doesn't need you too. She lost her son in probably the worst way possible two weeks ago, and she needs all the love and support she can get."   
  
"From what I could see," Said Denny conversationally, "She's getting plenty of that from you." Karen briefly blushed, not altogether happy with discussing her private life with an inmate.   
  
"I'm not talking that kind of support," Replied Karen, not committing herself to anything that hours later might be turned in to G wing gossip.   
  
"Are you really sure she wants me around after I get out?" Asked Denny.   
  
"Yes," Replied Karen without hesitation. "The way she sees it, the sooner you get out the better. I'd like to do a deal with you. Now that Snowball's gone, you can begin to think about getting on with your life, really thinking about getting out. Will you try to knuckle down, try to behave for the rest of your sentence, maybe get a better job or do some education classes which would certainly give the parole board something to think about. You wouldn't just be doing this for you, you'd be doing it for Yvonne."   
  
"Miss, you said deal. What's your side of it?" Karen lit another cigarette for herself, not looking forward to what was coming, though it was made much easier by the fact that any long-term prisoner has ears on elastic.   
  
"Some time last year, I was raped."   
  
"I know," Said Denny, leaving Karen utterly gobsmacked. "It was Fenner, wasn't it?" Asked Denny after a short silence. Recovering her momentary loss of equilibrium, Karen asked,   
  
"How did you know?"   
  
"You hear things in this place, sometimes things you shouldn't. I heard it said that the dick of a barrister who was working for Merriman at the start of the trial tried to ask you about an allegation you'd made against Fenner."   
  
"Where did you hear this?"   
  
"Bodybag's got a big mouth, Miss." Privately vowing to bang Sylvia up in her very own cell, Karen said,   
  
"What made you so certain it was true."   
  
"Jesus, you've got a lot to learn," Replied Denny scornfully. "If someone accuses Fenner of rape, it's true. There's never any doubt. You weren't here in the old days when he had the pick of the place, even before Miss Stewart came. Shell Dockley and Rachel Hicks was only two of them." Karen stared at Denny slightly agog, never having heard such words of bitterness and wisdom come out of the mouth of anyone like Denny.   
  
"Well," Went on Karen, continuing her explanation. "The barrister who prosecuted Snowball, offered to help me put a case together against Fenner and what with everything that's happened over the last four weeks, I've avoided thinking about it. If you agree to keep your nose clean and to get out as soon as you possibly can for Yvonne, I'll contact this barrister and start a serious case against Fenner. Do we have a deal?"   
  
"It's gonna be as hard for you to do that as it is for me to be good, innit Miss?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
"Then yeah, you've got a deal." Karen and Denny formally shook hands over their pact, because this was as serious a bargain as either of them had ever entered in too.   
  
When Karen had escorted Denny back to the wing, she returned to her office and picked up the card that had been leering at her for three weeks now. It simply said Jo Mills QC, and gave her office address, e-mail address and telephone and mobile numbers. Lifting the receiver, Karen punched in the number that would eventually lead her in to the unknown territory of being considered a suspect or at the very least an accessory to murder. When she was finally put through to Jo Mills, she said,   
  
"Jo, it's Karen Betts." After a moment's hesitation, Jo answered,   
  
"I wondered if I might hear from you. How are you?"   
  
"I appear to have committed myself to a deal with an inmate that leads me to require your services," Replied Karen.   
  
"Not as defence, I hope." Karen laughed nervously.   
  
"No. Would your offer of three weeks ago still be open?"   
  
"If you mean am I still willing to help you put together a case against James Fenner, then the answer's yes."   
  
"Then, I'd like to take you up on it."   
  
"Other than your deal with a prisoner, is there any particular reason why you've arrived at this decision? Because I think we both know it'll be a bumpy ride."   
  
"Bumpy ride or not, let's just say that it's about time that the odd coffin was treated to a few nails." 


	70. Part Seventy

Part Seventy   
  
On the nice sunny Friday morning, Fenner reflected on his relative good fortune as he sat lazily with his feet up in the PO Room. It looked out on the first floor of G wing and, for this reason, gave him a chance to keep an eye on the prisoners. A new young female prisoner was pouring him a nice cup of tea. He liked being waited on as it gave him a sense of power. He could tell at a glance when the new prisoner first came that she was as green as they come, likely to be done over by the likes of McKenzy or Yates and in need of his special brand of care and protection, as long as she accepted just who was boss. This was one of his basic rules of the prison service which he stuck to rigidly..  
  
"Is that how you like your tea, sir?" She said shyly and respectfully, glad to have a solid older reliable man treating her nicely. She wasn't used to that from men in her experience.  
  
"You make it just the way I like it," Fenner said soothingly."I've seen you on the wing with some of the others giving you a hard time. I'll keep a special eye on you and make sure you don't come to any harm. Trust me," he looked at the faintly blushing girl in the eye almost trying to hypnotise her with his voice and stare.  
  
"That's my girl," he added, placing his forefinger under her chin.  
  
In every way, she was a vast improvement on that middle aged middle class snob Babs always looking at him in such a disapproving fashion. That time she shared a cell with Wade turned her into one of his worst enemies like the rest of those scheming bitches who made his life hell. Agreed, she wasn't violent and aggressive like some of them but she knew far too much about him and that is the worst crime of anything in his book. Never mind, he reflected to himself, most of them have all gone now ,everything is only a matter of time. The last serious trouble maker he's seen the back of was that tart Merriman who led him a right dance and conned him blind. She's six feet under, pushing up the daisies and can't do him any harm now as dead bodies can't talk. Now the trial's out of the way, he can take life a bit easier. He had to admit that it did give him a bit of a shock the Monday after the trial finished to read about it in the papers that both she and that mouthy boyfriend of her had topped themselves ,just like that. It was just as well that only Sylv and Di were around that night so that they will carry the can for it, not him.. Give everything time and the good times that he had before Stewart came will all come back for him to enjoy. A man needs a few perks in this dump doing a job for which you got no thanks.   
  
A nice cup of tea, a copy of the Sun, Page 3 of course, the pick of the new prisoners and all he needs as well is a boss who will look the other way like the old days and he is made for life. Of course, the one fly in the ointment is Betts but she's got it in for Di at the moment and making her life hell so all he needs to do is to keep a low profile for the moment. His face darkened when he thought of Betts as that murdering Atkins came back into his thoughts. I'm sure that those two are shagging from the way that they are behaving, he thought to himself bitterly, but there's nothing definite. There is something in Larkhall that does that to aggressive female bosses once the power goes to their heads.   
  
'It's as easy as clicking my fingers, Fenner. I could have you wiped off the face of the Earth in a matter of seconds. Don't you forget that.' Those words uttered by Atkins abruptly jumped back into his mind and he remembered the feel of her fingers round his throat. It made him break out in a cold sweat. If he was honest with himself, he hated Atkins more than anything else because she was more dangerous than anyone else. She knew more than the rest of those bitches and also had the gangland connections to bump anyone off once she made up her mind.  
  
But London's a big place, he reasoned to himself. Apart from her connections with Betts, there is absolutely nothing to link his life with hers. People come and go, on the outside of Larkhall. You go up into the big city and ask directions off a passer by and you'll find that you've picked on a tourist, American or French, who knows less than you do. He's got his comfortable house near to Larkhall where he comes and goes each day and Atkins is probably swanning around somewhere in the sticks. She's off his personal map and she'll fade into the background and be no more than a bad memory.  
  
He likes the look of that new prison Officer, Selena, Now she is someone who sets his pulse racing. She looks like she's an Ice Maiden on the surface but give him time, he'll   
  
smooch her up a bit and he'll get his leg over eventually.   
  
He strolled out onto the wing and caught sight of Betts chatting to the 2 Julies who were mopping the servery floor before she swanned off elsewhere. The more Betts is stuck away in her office looking over budgets, the happier he is.  
  
"The mopping's a bit smeary, Julies. Can't you give it another once over?" he said quietly, on principle's sake.  
  
"Yes, Mr Fenner," they chorussed with a fixed smile and made a token gesture at slopping some more water on the floor till they were sure he was out of sight.  
  
"Men," Julie Saunders said scornfully. "I'd like to see a mop in his hand and stand over him till he got it right."  
  
"You'd have to hang around a bloody long time, Ju," Came the equally derisive reply.  
  
In the PO room, Di was complaining ten to the dozen . Even Bodybag found that Di had to make a big drama out of everything and was never known for short concise statements.  
  
"I reckon that Karen Betts has got it in for me, Sylv," She complained. "She talked down to me as if I were a naughty schoolgirl about Ritchie's suicide. I mean it was terrible what happened but there was no reason for her to behave that way with me."  
  
"Hmmph," Bodybag retorted. "Now you understand what I've been getting at all these months. It's because she hasn't got a man about the house. Mark my words. Women get funny like that at her age when they're in that situation. Don't worry as Madam was only looking for a scapegoat. Welcome to the club, Di."   
  
It's only a matter of working out routines, she thought to herself with satisfaction. She was sitting in the parked car, the fourth in the row, watching Fenner as he came off his shift. As his car slid away down the road and he took himself in the direction of the same pub as on every night, she followed behind at a discreet distance. People pretend that they are creatures of impulse but it is not like that. Everyone has their comforting routine of the same supermarket, the same pub, the same group of friends, the same time of coming to work and leaving work, and she would bet even the same TV programmes though she hadn't got the surveillance equipment to check that out for herself. It all adds up to the same feeling of normality that everyone craves and they do it without thinking, without even being aware of it. Even the apparently spontaneous desire for a night out on the town rigidly observes these unconscious patterns of activity. It makes stalking Fenner so much easier. Then again, despite all the TV crime dramas and films over the years, what normal person suspects that they may be caught up in a real life situation. All the excitement and drama is on the other side of the TV screen. Anyone watching 'Crimewatch' thinks for a while that they, too, had the chance of watching some real life drama that they were an unwitting bystander of. But week after week goes by and it always happens to someone else, never them. So people resign themselves to a long stretch of boring normality in dull acceptance.   
  
This applies to even such a man as Fenner whom she knew had taken a lot of chances in his life and the bastard had wriggled out of being nailed by the skin of his teeth. He thinks that life will settle down, and actively craves it. That is why he will not have the inkling of a suspicion that it is no accident that the car three cars behind him every night is hers and that she intends to follow his movements. Who, after all, looks out for danger, especially when he thinks that he is safe. His daytime is spent in looking out for possible danger in his job, he watches the signs of groups of prisoners conspiring together ,that is part of his jailcraft. Outside the grim walls of Larkhall, his defences are dropped with a sigh of relief and he is just like some other normal person going his own way. That is what will make things easy for her.  
  
A TV programme like Cracker talks about profiling the criminal, what makes him tick. But the reverse applies to the stalker following someone like Fenner, especially when she has a bit of a head start. Everything about the life he leads will tell her just what sort of a person he is. In the end, the timing will be right. Even a conniving slimeball like Fenner won't even suspect that the anonymous looking person is watching his every move. If you don't do anything bloody obvious or stupid, her very existence won't be suspected. At the bottom of her very soul, she knows it. It is all a matter of persistence, cool planning and, above all else, time.   
  
Just why she is letting herself in for all this extra hard work, she does not even have to question as this is something she has promised herself that she will do without fail. She has committed herself physically and mentally and all her strength is focussed on this one goal.   
  
"Night Sylv," Fenner called out as he walked out into the bright sunlight after seven hours of artificial strip lights ready for the weekend.. He was ready for a swift half at the pub on the way home to put his feet up. It had been a long day with the boring day to day routines with nothing much happening. He had sorted out the Julies when they came to him about a leaky washing machine and had commiserated with Di when she was moaning on about that power crazed Betts. Secretly, he was cruelly amused that she was getting it in the neck and not him and the longer she took the heat the better, as she was being driven into the same camp as Sylvia and himself. Betts was doing a very good job of undermining her own position and that must be good news.  
  
He drove confidently through the maze of streets and found his local, a backstreet pub and well away from Grayling's local. Sitting around hearing him drivelling away about his wet dreams wasn't his idea of a night out, not even to further his career. Playing a round of golf with Stubberfield on a Sunday morning with a few jars downed at the eighteenth hole and catching up on gossip was far more to his taste. He drew up a chair with some of his mates who were in the pub at that hour and immediately, he was engaged in an intense discussion about the football premiership and earnestly dissecting the standard of play on last night's game. This was the life, he felt, as he sank comfortably in his chair, a pint of beer in front of him and talking with the lads about anything except prisons. There was an unspoken agreement on this and lads night out meant talking about anything that came into their minds, especially if it wasn't about feelings and 'give me a cuddle' shit that he was used to with women.   
  
If this is Fenner's idea of a night out, she thought, give me my idea of having a good time out anytime. How in hell they can stand yabbering mindlessly away about sod all. Still, this is building up her surveillance picture so that everything the bastard does is charted in her mind. Closeted away in a quiet alcove, she nursed her drink and kept her eyes and ears open.  
  
Outside Fenner's house, everything was relatively quiet on a Saturday morning apart from the first of the dedicated shoppers whose compulsion to drive to the shopping malls and to spend the hard earned money that they hadn't got. The rest of the population opened their bleary eyes, serene in knowing that there was no alarm clock to wake up to and the various attractions of Saturday sport, children's television or simple lazing in bed and letting the world go by. Not so was the car that pulled into the row of cars a little distance from Fenner's house and round the corner. It offered a superb view of the frontage of Fenner's terraced house, the front door and a set of four drawn curtains..She was in for a long tedious wait while she mapped in the typical day in Fenner's life. She got out her set of Walkman's and plugged herself in to her favourite music which made her believe that she was listening to the same music which she could have heard in her bedroom on a lazy Saturday morning. Only her alert eyes made her experiences any different and the security that she felt that should switch in a snap second to pulling the Walkman away from her ears, turning the key in the ignition and following Fenner's car down the road. She knew that she was a bit conspicuous with the rows of windows like huge square eyes all focussing down on her but she was gambling on the good old British habit of 'keeping themselves to themselves' and she figured out that a secretive man like him was hardly likely to be a pillar of the local community that a neighbour would tip him off about anyone spying on him.  
  
Suddenly, there was a rustle of front curtains partly drawn as the house came to life and was the cue for her to be ready for anything. A little while later, Fenner emerged from the front door and rushed to his car and sped off down the road. Down the narrow streets, she tailed his car whose registration number was emblazoned obsessively on her mind as somehow symbolising him though exactly how, she couldn't say. She had to cut past some of the slower weekend drivers who doddered their way along as Fenner drove like a bat out of hell. Just why he was in a frantic hurry worried her and it was with a sigh of relief that she saw him pull up with a screech of brakes at the local supermarket. She didn't have to wait outside very long till he rushed out with a trolley stacked with a couple of multipack cans of beer and assorted junk food.  
  
She was feeling tired as she had worked hard in gradually mapping out Fenner's life beyond the prison walls. The picture was coming together and once the time was right, she would know what to do.  
  
Fenner's alarm clock had woken him up with a shrill constant sound as he slept his way through the morning after a night out with the lads. The all important football match was on and he was clean out of booze. He had to go like hell and have a quick swoop round the supermarket and get settled down ready. One phone call for a takeaway pizza and he was set up for a nice normal take it easy Saturday and he was master of his destiny. 


	71. Part Seventy One

Part Seventy One   
  
Karen's appointment with Jo was for eleven o'clock on the Monday morning following her phone call. Once the officers meeting was out of the way, Karen went back to her office and tried to do some work. But the figures kept swimming out of focus on the screen in front of her. She lit one cigarette after another, and only just resisted drinking endless cups of coffee. She was nervous enough without the caffeine making her jittery as well. Both Sylvia and Di seemed to appear at her door with a never-ending stream of inconsequential problems that morning and Karen couldn't help snapping at both of them. At almost ten, she gave in and phoned Yvonne.   
  
"Are you okay?" Asked Yvonne on realising it was Karen.   
  
"No. I'm snapping at everyone, smoking too much and not doing anything useful, and that's before I even go there. I promised myself I wouldn't do this, but please would you come with me?"   
  
"Of course I will," Replied Yvonne.   
  
"The thing is, Jo's going to want every little insignificant detail, and I'm not sure how ready I am for you to hear most of that. When I told you about this, you got only what I thought you needed to know."   
  
"Listen," Said Yvonne gently, attempting to calm Karen down. "I know there's things about all this that I don't know, and only you can decide if and when you want to fill me in. But if all you want today is for me to come with you and wait outside, then that's fine. Okay?"   
  
"Yeah, okay. I don't know what I'd do without you."   
  
"You'd probably have a very quiet but a very boring life," Said Yvonne matter-of-factly, which made Karen laugh.   
  
After talking to Yvonne, Karen knew there was one thing she had to do before leaving to see Jo. Walking down to the wing, she knocked on the partially open door of Denny's cell and was relieved to see that she was alone. Denny appeared pleased to see her.   
  
"I thought you might like to know," Said Karen, coming in and pushing the door too, "That I'm off to see my barrister."   
  
"Yeah? That's great. You're gonna nail him, Miss."   
  
"Don't get your hopes up too high," Warned Karen, "It's not always as simple as it sounds. What are you doing?" She asked, looking at what Denny was reading.   
  
"I borrowed this off Tina," Replied Denny, holding up the education department's prospectus of the courses they had on offer at Larkhall. "only, I don't really understand most of it."   
  
"Would you like me to go through it with you some time this week?"   
  
"Would you, Miss?"   
  
"Of course."   
  
"Cheers, and good luck for today. They've got to listen to you, innit."   
  
"Let's hope so," Said Karen as she left Denny's cell. Quickly putting her head round the door of the officers' room, Karen saw Jim and Sylvia taking a break.   
  
"I've got an appointment so I won't be around for a while."   
  
"Anywhere nice?" Asked Fenner, for once sounding genuinely interested.   
  
"The dentist," Replied Karen off the top of her head. As she was closing the door, she heard Sylvia say,   
  
"Let's hope she gets her jaw wired up. That'd give us all a bit of peace." Leaning back in to the room, Karen replied,   
  
"You never know your luck, Sylvia," Which was followed by a hearty laugh from Fenner and the hint of a blush from Sylvia at being caught in slagging off her boss.   
  
Walking out of the gate lodge a short time later, Karen was relieved to see Yvonne waiting for her, not in the red Ferrari, but in a beautiful silver-gray jag that Karen had seen in Yvonne's drive. At Karen's questioning look, Yvonne said,   
  
"It used to be Charlie's. It hasn't been driven for a while so I thought it would do it good."   
  
"Don't let Fenner see you round here driving this," Said Karen, with a sly grin, "It'd make him as jealous as hell and even more difficult to work with."   
  
"Well, let's hope by doing this that you can finally put him out of action for good," Said Yvonne softly.   
  
"Do you really think I'm doing the right thing?" Asked Karen, needing the reassurance that she usually doled out to others.   
  
"Yes," Said Yvonne emphatically. "If for nothing else than that you won't be able to move on from this until you've done all you possibly can to see that he doesn't do it again."   
  
As they walked in to the reception of the law firm Jo worked for, Karen felt a rising panic in her, a feeling, a warning that she really shouldn't do this. But telling herself this was stupid, she walked purposefully to the desk and informed the receptionist who she was there to see. Having been told to take a seat, they moved to a row of very comfortable-looking armchairs.   
  
"I feel like I'm about to have major surgery," Observed Karen quietly.   
  
"I guess you are in a way," Replied Yvonne, not entirely sure how best to help Karen through this. Then, they were approached by a very pretty redhead who introduced herself as Jo Mills' secretary and asked Karen to follow her. Giving Karen's hand a brief squeeze, Yvonne said,   
  
"Don't worry, I'll be right here." Following this extremely attractive woman upstairs, Karen was led along a corridor to an open door where Jo was waiting for her.   
  
"Come in," She said, holding the door open. Everything about Karen, her posture, her facial expression, gave off rigidity and fear. "Would you like some coffee?" She asked.   
  
"No thank you. I'm nervous enough about this without caffeine."   
  
"That's only natural." Jo had a couple of low armchairs by the window with a coffee table between them, on which she had placed an ashtray. Jo usually tried to avoid sitting at her desk when she had to have this type of meeting with a client. She found that the barrier of a desk often made her clients feel more vulnerable, as if they didn't entirely have her support in what was usually a stressful time.   
  
"I have managed to obtain a copy of your statement to the police," Began Jo once they'd sat down.   
  
"That was quick," Observed Karen.   
  
"An ex-Deputy Assistant Commissioner owed me a favour," Replied Jo, thinking briefly of how Roe Colmore had used both her and John, and that if necessary, this wouldn't be the first time she called in part of the recompense due to both of them.   
  
"And did it make interesting reading?"   
  
"Yes. Now, I know this isn't something you will be in favour of doing, but I need to hear what happened in your own words. If you're serious about taking this further, I need to know everything."   
  
"I know," Said Karen, digging for her cigarettes.   
  
"I purposefully arranged this for my last appointment of the morning to give you as much time as you need."   
  
"How much background do you need on him?"   
  
"As much as you can tell me. It doesn't matter how irrelevant it might seem." Jo reached over to her desk for a tiny cassette recorder. "You have a choice," She said, putting the recorder down on the table between them. "I can either tape this and write it up afterwards, or I can take notes as you talk. Which would you prefer?" Karen privately thought that neither would be the right answer, but agreed to her interview being taped.   
  
"I met Fenner about four years ago. We were at a conference together, some prison officers thing. He was charm personified. He'd been in the job about twelve years and I'd been a prison officer for about eight. I'd mostly worked with men, he with women. He seemed intelligent, experienced at the job, just normal. Anyway, most of us got fairly plastered on the last night of the conference, and me and Jim ended up sleeping together. I was bored with my relationship of five years, and he was bored with his marriage. It was a one night stand, no more no less. I didn't see or hear from him again until I got the job at Larkhall. He was acting wing governor whilst Helen Stewart was on holiday. He seemed pleased to see me. Surprised, but pleased. He tried to take me out for a drink, but not wanting anything to interfere with a working relationship, I said no. Then, Shell Dockley alleged that he'd beaten her up. I saw her straight after it'd happened, so I know he did. He was suspended, but as a result of Simon Stubberfield, the then number one not wanting to thoroughly investigate the matter, Helen Stewart resigned. Somehow, Fenner got at Dockley. I don't know how, but I suspect one of the other officers, Sylvia Hollamby brought in a letter from him, after which, Dockley dropped the charges."   
  
"What explanation did she give?"   
  
"She said she'd made it up because he wouldn't sleep with her. I've never been able to get the entire truth out of her about what happened that day. So, when Helen Stewart resigned, I was made wing governor. Not long after his return, I was certainly glad of his help when an HIV positive inmate came after me with a syringe of her blood." Jo tried not to shudder at this. "Snowball Merriman wasn't the first time I'd been held hostage. A lovely girl by the name of Tessa Spall. Working for the CPS, you may have heard of her." Remembering a particularly nasty case some years back, Jo nodded. "Not long after this, Helen Stewart came back as a prison service professional, overseeing a project for women lifers. All was fairly quiet for quite a long time, at least up until a couple of days before he was stabbed." At Jo's raised eyebrow, Karen explained. "One of the officers had a party in the officers' club, and four of the inmates from G wing were there as waitresses. Shell Dockley was one of them. Two days before this party, I'd ended up sleeping with Jim again. He'd just split up from his wife, and I think I felt sorry for him. The more he drank at this party, the more indiscreet he became. During this party, Shell Dockley told me that her initial allegation of Fenner having assaulted her was true. I can only assume that she either realised or had it pointed out to her that there was more than a professional relationship between Jim and me. I'm not sure why, but I believed her. After the party, she smuggled a broken bottle back to her cell, and when he went to lock her up, she somehow persuaded him in to her cell and stabbed him. I don't know exactly what happened but I wish I did. Seeing him lying there, it really shocked me. She held him hostage and wouldn't let us get to him for a good couple of hours. He almost died. Both me and Helen seemed to be on a power trip that night. She pulled rank because Dockley was a lifer and therefore under her jurisdiction, and I sent the heavies in instead of waiting for Helen's more persuasive tactics because it was my wing and my lover. After that night, Helen conducted an internal investigation in to what had happened, but we couldn't get the truth out of Dockley so we had to conclude that he was totally innocent, and that he wasn't in her cell for any remotely nefarious reason. but she did find out that I was sleeping with him, which is why I tried to put him off, relationships at work and all that. But when it comes to women, he's one of the most persistent men I've ever known. It was too easy to slide back in to a relationship with him, too easy to be seduced by his charm." Finding herself disturbingly thinking of John in the same breath as Fenner, Jo hoped Karen would move off her coincidental comparison of the two men. "Not long after he came back, he assaulted Helen Stewart." Karen handed Jo a copy of Helen's report and watched as she read it. When Jo reached the end, Karen continued. "I didn't know about this at the time, but apart from the date on the report, I'm fairly sure I know when it happened. It was the week before three of the inmates escaped. Helen asked me how things were going with Jim. There was something different about her, something I couldn't put my finger on. Jesus, I was completely under his spell. If he hadn't reeled me in so thoroughly, I would have seen it. Every time she was in the same room as him after that, she seemed to exude a mixture of fear and anger, and I never once questioned it." There was such a corrosive air of sheer self-loathing in Karen's voice that inwardly, Jo winced. "I didn't find out about the assault until she resigned and left a copy of that report on my desk. I don't know why she left, but I'm certain Fenner had something to do with it. He was so happy on the day she left, that he asked me to marry him, and me being the deluded idiot I was, I said yes. But not long after Helen left, me and Jim split up." At Jo's raised eyebrow, Karen said, "You may well ask. I had a lovely little envelope left in my in-tray. It contained a pair of knickers belonging to one of the inmates and a porn mag from his locker. I don't know who put it there, but I think Yvonne instigated it. Someone clearly wanted to tell me just what I was getting in to. Then, Neil Grayling arrived, and demoted me and put Fenner in my place as wing governor. When I began getting closer to Mark Waddle, one of the other officers, Fenner used his position as my boss to try and lecture both of us about relationships at work." At the introduction of Mark's name in to the conversation, Karen's rapid flow of words began to dry up. Sensing they were almost at the heart of the story, Jo simply waited. Karen had to be allowed to tell this in her own way and in her own time. Karen lit another cigarette and Jo became aware that Karen was no longer looking at her.   
  
"It was a week or so after I'd had to deliver a baby for one of the inmates. He'd had a really bad day, had taken more flack from inmates than any of us usually did. I thought he was about to quit the job. When he stormed off the wing, he looked broken. When he was splitting up from his wife, he had a bit of a drink problem, and maybe I thought he was about to go through all that again. He didn't have anyone else to try and pick up the pieces. I went to see him. He was as low as I'd ever seen him." Karen's eyes became fixed on the opposite wall, as if she needed to look at something blank, something that couldn't possibly judge her. "He kept pouring me drinks," She went on, and her voice had taken on the strangled quality that is usually the precursor to tears. "I gave him a hug because he looked so lost. He said I was the best thing that'd ever happened to him and that he cursed himself for losing me. I think I told him I knew he wasn't a quitter, which let's face it, is true. He never has been a quitter, but then maybe that's the problem." Karen was drifting off the subject, but she couldn't help it. Taking a long drag of her cigarette, she willed herself to keep on going. "He started kissing me." Jo got the feeling that every word was being ripped from Karen with as much force and lack of consent as the original act had been. "We were lying on his bed. He began undoing my blouse, and I let him." Karen's eyes were slightly dilated now, as if she could picture the scene taking shape before her. "When he started undoing my skirt, I think I said that I wished I could get him out of my bloody system. He said, why fight it, you know you want me, you can't fake this." Jo could pinpoint the very moment when the tears had risen to Karen's eyes, it was at the utterance of the words, you know you want me. "I said, I don't want this, and he kept insisting that I did. He just wouldn't listen!" Abandoning any hope of keeping up her usual professional facade, Karen allowed the floodgates to open. "I begged him to stop. I told him to let go of me. I kept saying no, but he just held me down and forced me. I couldn't stop him. I just lay there till he fell asleep. Why is it men always do that? All I could think of was what Helen had said to me the last time I saw her. She came to my office to let me know she'd resigned, which is when she left the report on my desk. She said that he'd been playing me since day one and that he was a misogynist bastard. When I questioned this, she said that I was too close and that I couldn't see it. I kept hearing those words as I was getting dressed. She saw straight through him from day one, and I think part of me thought that what he'd done to me was my fault for not listening to her and for not taking her report of sexual assault as far as perhaps I should have done. He woke up just as I was leaving. He tried to stop me getting in to my car and I vaguely remember pushing him in to the hedge and driving off like the devil was after me." Karen seemed to have run out of steam. Jo reached for the box of tissues on her desk and switched off the tape recorder. "I'm sorry," Said Karen, pulling some tissues from the box and wiping her eyes.   
  
"Don't be," Replied Jo softly.   
  
"I usually have more control than this." Jo privately thought that this must be her week for strong women cracking up in her presence. First George, now Karen. She just wondered who would be next. When Karen had calmed down slightly, Jo switched on the tape recorder.   
  
"What made you go to the police?"   
  
"It was Mark. I had to tell him. I was after all supposed to be in a relationship with him. He didn't believe me at first. I've never had anyone look at me the way he did that morning. He said that I expected him to believe me when I didn't believe it myself."   
  
"And did you?"   
  
"I had to," Said Karen, the desperate need to have Jo believe her evident in every word. "Mark wouldn't let it go until I had talked to the police. He implied that I hadn't done so earlier because I wasn't sure whether or not it was rape. After I'd given the police my statement, I had to inform Grayling because of the possible conflict of interest, and you know all about that fiasco."   
  
"Neil Grayling persuaded you to drop the charge because of a fictitious contact at the CPS who supposedly told him they weren't going to take up the case."   
  
"That about sums it up. What I didn't tell either you or the Judge, is that initially, Fenner tried to warn me off taking it further. When I was living with him, he took some pictures of me, pictures that wouldn't have looked out of place in the magazine I was sent from his locker. Using Grayling as his mouthpiece, I was warned that if I did take it further, these pictures would be sent to the press. It was when that threat didn't work that Grayling placed his card of the supposed contact from the CPS."   
  
"Did you try to take this further through area management instead?"   
  
"I was informed that area management wouldn't touch it if the CPS had refused too. Grayling said that they couldn't pre-empt the law."   
  
"And it wasn't long after this that Ritchie Atkins arrived on the scene to further complicate things." Karen laughed mirthlessly.   
  
"A bit of a shambles, isn't it."   
  
"I've seen worse," Replied Jo, switching off the tape recorder and putting it back on her desk, feeling that she'd obtained all the useful information she was going to get out of Karen today.   
  
"How do you feel?" Asked Jo after a moment's silence.   
  
"I don't know," Replied Karen in a hollow voice.   
  
"There are a number of gaps that do need filling in," Went on Jo, "But not today. I need to get my head round all this, and you need to recover slightly before I start playing devil's advocate. Do you object if I use another barrister as a sounding board?"   
  
"No, not at all."   
  
Downstairs in the lobby, Yvonne was reading the paper. Having briefly checked on the stock market to make sure her ever so legal investments were safe for the time being, she turned to the racing pages. Having once owned her own betting shop, she liked to show an interest now and then. But her thoughts kept straying to Karen. Yvonne found that she didn't have the first idea about how to help Karen through this. She knew that it was the right thing to do, Fenner should have been behind his own set of bars years ago. But was pursuing a case that was based on the flimsiest of evidence really worth it. But it was Karen's decision, and she had chosen to try. She was jerked from her musings when she heard a distinctly familiar voice talking to the receptionist. Briefly looking over the top of the paper, she saw it was the Judge himself, the very man who had sent her son to the last place he had ever seen. But she wasn't about to put any blame on this man. He had simply been doing his job in punishing the two guilty people before him.   
  
"I'm sorry, sir, but Mrs. Mills is with a client just now," Said the receptionist who was used to this regular visitor flirting with her. John glanced at his watch.   
  
"I'll wait," He said, and moved over towards where Yvonne was sitting. Taking a seat near her, he looked at what she was reading, the list of horses due to run at Stratford that afternoon.   
  
"I haven't had a bet on a horse for a long time," He said, as a way to open the conversation.   
  
"From what I've heard," Said Yvonne with a smirk, "You just bet on other people's sex lives." Wondering how on earth Yvonne and therefore Karen had known of the bet he'd had with Jo, John had the grace to look a shade uncomfortable. Thinking he had the look of a naughty schoolboy caught with his hand up the gym teacher's skirt, Yvonne laughed, which immediately put him at his ease.   
  
"Female Intuition," She said, pointing to a horse listed for the third race. ""Wins every time."   
  
"I've no doubt," He replied, "But what odds would you give her?"   
  
"Five to one, if some bastard doesn't get in her way."   
  
"A healthy dose of luck wouldn't go amiss either," He observed, liking her ability to have two conversations rolled in to one.   
  
"Are you here to see Jo?"   
  
"Yes. I was at a loose end so I thought I'd bring her lunch," He said, gesturing to the delicatessen bag on the seat beside him.   
  
"Karen isn't the only one who'll need a hefty shot of luck to get through this one," Observed Yvonne, "The prison service is very good at covering its tracks."   
  
"I'm sure they'll both get all the help they need," Replied John, seeing in Yvonne a strength, a force of will that would back Karen up every step of the way.   
  
About ten minutes later they saw Jo and Karen making their way down the stairs.   
  
"What are you planning to do for the rest of the day?" Asked Jo quietly.   
  
"I wasn't making much headway on my budgets this morning, so I hope I'll have more success this afternoon."   
  
"Possibly the only piece of advice I can give you right now," Replied Jo, "Is that being anywhere near Fenner after telling me all that, probably isn't a good idea. I'd take the rest of the day off and give yourself a chance to come to terms with reopening old wounds."   
  
"We'll see," Replied Karen as she caught sight of John and Yvonne. Jo smiled when she saw him.   
  
"Is that for me?" She said, looking at the bag that clearly held lunch.   
  
"Sometimes I wonder if she's more pleased to see me or lunch," Said John, looking between the other two women, attempting to lighten the palpable tension he could feel coming off Karen. Karen simply offered a shaky smile, knowing that if she tried to speak amidst the different variations of support and comfort she could feel coming from these three people, she knew she would cry. Jo hadn't been surprised to see Yvonne, knowing that some people preferred to bring someone with them, and some didn't. Turning to Karen, Jo said,   
  
"Please do what I suggested. I think you need it. I'll call you in a couple of days." As Karen and Yvonne walked out to her car, Jo simply watched them, wondering if justice would ever be served. 


	72. Part Seventy Two

Part Seventy Two   
  
Jo turned on her heel , grim faced, and strode her way back to her office, closely followed by John. John sat himself nonchalantly in a chair while Jo turned her back to him and firmly shut her door. It was as if she wanted to bar the door to any intruders. She was struggling for the mindset that dispassionately sifted out, in her mind, the undeniable facts of the matter in hand from the hearsay and the circumstantial. It was the ingrained training in her and her habit of weighing up the reliability of the testimony. She stared at the cheap cassette recorder that held in its compact rectangular brown reel to reel shape, the personification of the sustained damage done to a woman. This was no abstract cause to be fought for in the name of justice but an intelligent woman with a force of character, ensnared by an evil man and dragged down by a spider's web of conspiracy. For all this, she was a strong woman, as strong as herself?   
  
'Why is it that men always do that………. Why is it that men always do that……. Why is it that men always do that…' echoed round in Jo's mind.  
  
"I told Karen when I saw her privately in chambers that the injustice that she suffered at the hands of Mr Fenner should not go unpunished and that I would do all I can to see that at the very least, this type of cover up never happens again," John spoke in his dispassionate, reasonable tone of voice."   
  
"Injustice!" exploded Jo incredulously, "You call it an injustice?"  
  
"Certainly I do, Jo," John replied, closing his eyes in the attitude of the fictional hero of his youth, Sherlock Holmes. "I was very much moved by the way she spoke to me at the time and I meant every word that I said."   
  
It was the emotionless way that John spoke that caused Jo to explode. He was so damned calm about everything and though, at heart, she believed that he did care, it was the combination of thoughts that blew the top off the emotional pressure cooker.  
  
"Well I'm really glad you felt that way. That makes me feel reassured that the desiccated calculating machine that you are, that weighs the scales of justice, might make you feel just a little bit upset this time," Jo raged sarcastically at him, her voice slightly shaking when the volcanic upsurge of her emotions broke through.   
  
"I am angry, bloody furious and I don't care who hears. You have a typical male reaction to having to face something totally horrible where you must fight down what passes for feelings in your body, to not get emotional about it, to bottle it all up, to make everything so neat and tidy in your mind and then it is safe for you to speak. Why, oh why, can't you storm and rage and stop being so emotionally constipated. I have heard a woman, much like myself, having to pour her heart out about being taken advantage of by a cheap conniving man who she described as 'charm personified."   
  
At that point, Jo paused to draw breath while she strove to put the spoken word to her whirling thoughts. As she did so, her blue eyes stared accusingly at John. She could not say it but the last two words could apply to him, now she realised it. It was a sickening thought because she could not square it with the very real acts of kindness and justice that he dispensed, the way he selflessly helped out her own father with no thought for personal advantage. He was, after all, everything that she aspired to be as a practising barrister and, who knows, a judge. He was the guiding light when ,in moments of doubt, she asked herself what John would have done in a similar situation.  
  
"It could have happened to me, John," Jo finally blurted out.  
  
"Oh come on, Jo," John said as he went to comfort her but she flinched back. "You would never have been so stupid as to go to bed with someone like Fenner."  
  
"Except when………." Jo started to speak but stopped abruptly.  
  
John knew. Jo was talking about the time sixteen years ago when at the height of their intense relationship, she had found herself pregnant. With a dying husband whom, in her way, she was fond of, it made sense not to carry on with the pregnancy. It seemed the right thing to do and Jo had let herself be propelled in the direction of the abortion clinic and the child that she had never had but could have had.  
  
"No one is invulnerable or infallible, John, not you not me and not Karen Betts," Jo said calmly and clearly.  
  
It shook John. He had meant well and, of course, saw Karen as a woman to be pitied and helped. He had done the rational thing and realised that, on top of the public exposure of her relationship with Ritchie Atkins, she was preparing to do the same with her one time relationship with James Fenner. He disliked the shifty treacherous man intensely as he disliked anyone without moral principles. Jo was always level headed and had an incisive mind for the strengths and weaknesses of the case. Why was she getting so emotional about the matter? Emotions are a treacherous beast to be enslaved to where nothing can mean everything and vice versa. He set out his store by the dispassionate application of the law rooted in high principles. He never had cause to doubt himself.  
  
Jo saw that something in what she had thrown at him had registered but saw the familiar tell tale signs of him trying to distance himself from something unpleasant. Of course, what made it very hard for her was that John was nearly right in reducing the raw and bleeding feelings to the bare facts of a case to put to a court of law. Being nearly right wasn't enough, her feelings screamed out in rebellion against the way that their calling had so powerfully influenced them both to think. And, in his own way, John did care, certainly enough to act boldly and courageously on occasion where many a moral coward would hang back. But why was it so hard for John to join his divided selves into the one person? She saw the fatal and painful duality of their calling but, with all his wisdom, how much did John know of this? Was it because he was a man or was it simply John's own complex and enigmatic character.It was only now that Jo's own niggling doubts, buried deep in her, had risen to the surface and given itself words to speak to her.  
  
"I'm getting old, Jo . You can't expect me to change my way of life at my age. Old habits die hard," John explained wearily.   
  
What was he expected to do, he thought, slash his wrists and commit ritual hara kiri in sympathy with all the victims of injustice? There was only so much he could give of himself, and in his own way, he gave generously and unstintingly. There was something within him that made his feeling run cold in the presence of the person and kept his distance but there was some peculiar twist within him that once his senses connected with the dry and arid principles of law and how flagrantly a transgression too place, he became another person. There was something inside him, he could not put a name to it, that caught fire in ardent sympathy for the injustice and the human being. Once his deep sense of honour was engaged, he clung on like a limpet, becoming all the more obstinate the harder he was pushed to back down.  
  
"I know only too well, John," Jo's slightly shaking voice spoke a multitude of confused emotions and very mixed feelings born of their on off relationship.  
  
" But what are we arguing about? We're on the same side. But when everything is said and done , you know what you have to do. If you really care, you must be dispassionate about the case. If I remember rightly from my conversation with Karen, her previous attempt to seek justice was thwarted by Mr Grayling. I recall what a sly and slippery character he was giving evidence in court."   
  
John had alternated between pleading and firm reasoning to Jo and finally switched to a tone of cold contempt and utter distaste of Grayling. He could not stand the sight of anyone who was prepared to sell his soul for material advancement and took an obscene pride in doing so. Toadies and bullies were rife in the semi militaristic regime of the public school that he attended. When he was little, he fought back with his fists so that the sheer look of contempt that he stared back at the bullies made them hold back and leave him alone. Any of the weaker, more defenceless friends of his that were liable to be picked on in some back corner of the school were safe from them as well. He was now in a more sophisticated, more dangerous world of words and institutions but,essentially, matters had not changed.   
  
Jo put her hands to her head in utter frustration. Of course John was right. But it didn't make it any easier. The words he spoke made her want to agree with him as his integrity in these matters was beyond dispute. So why was she fighting with him so much?   
  
"Are you seriously suggesting that that loathsome reptile would collude with Sir Ian Rochester in denying Karen the justice that she is entitled to, in fact that justice is crying out for?" Jo replied, in mounting anger as the hideous possibility dawned on her and finishing in words that she unconsciously borrowed from John many years ago.  
  
"They are two of a kind, that precious pair. I consider the danger very real,"  
  
John replied quietly.  
  
"But they must be stopped," Jo exclaimed.  
  
"By God, I won't let the man get away with it a second time," Came the reply as John's mouth set in a tight line and his anger boiled over in a sudden flame of rage.  
  
"Excuse me, Jo. I have urgent business to attend to with Sir Ian."   
  
After John kissed Jo perfunctorily on the cheek, his sheer suppressed violence of movement as he made for the door made Jo feel that familiar fear for John that he would one day push matters too far.   
  
"You'll be careful, John," She urged, the roles having somehow reversed so that she was entreating him not to be foolhardy and reckless.  
  
"As careful as I always am, Jo," his words floated back with the sudden fierce blast of air that accompanied the closing door and reassured Jo not at all.  
  
Jo helped herself to a stiff drink from the bottle on the side. It was what she felt she needed most at that second.   
  
"Can I have a word with you, Ian?" John said politely to the man.  
  
Ian raised his eyebrows as this was something of a role reversal. He was busy contemplating a paper that he was preparing for the Attorney General about modernising the judiciary. He wondered what on earth the man was doing seeking out his company at a time like this.   
  
"It's strange to see you seeking out my company, John. I would have thought that after the Atkins Pilkinton case you would have kept a low profile. Do you want a cup of tea?" Sir Ian offered with chilly formality.  
  
"Most certainly, Ian," John said politely. Where he had to, he was capable of bottling down his feelings perhaps far too easily though on this occasion, it would work in his favour. The situation was reversed where he was asking a favour from Sir Ian for a change and charging in feet first was not going to help him achieve his end.   
  
While they were waiting , John took in the details of Sir Ian's office. It was large and spacious and had the look of a bygone era in the Civil Service before the brutal efficiency style of the modern switched on executive had taken over. There was something prim and proper in the look of the place.   
  
Eventually, a rather attractive young woman served them tea in ornate bone china cups and saucers and while they sipped, they tried to take the measure of each other before the opening exchanges. John took one glance at her, noticing as always, that she had nice legs.  
  
"Stay away from her. She's married," Sir Ian said firmly and accusingly, having intercepted John's oh so casual glance.  
  
"How's Lady Rochester these days?" John replied with that misleadingly innocent look on his face to which Sir Ian's stoniest glare was sufficient answer. The way that John had once flagrantly carried on an affair with her still rankled with him.   
  
"You will recall from watching the Atkins Pilkinton trial from the gallery that there were three witnesses called, Mr Fenner Principal Officer, Miss Betts Wing governor and Mr Grayling Governing Governor, all of whom work at Larkhall prison. I wanted to inform you before you hear of it officially that Mr Fenner will shortly be facing charges of rape and the plaintiff is Miss Betts," John Deed started in a more conciliatory fashion.  
  
"I'm listening, John," Sir Ian replied warily. An advance tip off from John was even more of a rare occurrence than John seeking out his company. "I'm grateful for any advance news but what do I owe you for this favour?"  
  
"Only this, Ian. This case could and should have been brought before a court of law well before now but she was dissuaded by Mr Grayling from pressing charges through a court of law. He had told her that from advice from an alleged friend in the CPS, that she had very little chance of success. Only I have it on best authority that it was you that he talked to," John said in friendly polite tones but there was a hard glitter in his eye and there was an edge of steel in his tones as he finished.  
  
"I refuse to comment on the matter," Sir Ian replied but his eyes looked away from John's. "Surely from what you are saying, it may go against the woman in question that she has delayed pressing charges. You know that the CPS are not keen in taking up cases where the odds are stacked against the plaintiff."  
  
"That is as it may be," John answered, acknowledging that he had hit upon a potential weakness in the case. "All I am asking for, Ian, is that the case is allowed to stand or fall on its merits and that if as a result of the court case, Mr Grayling does not emerge in a very good light, he takes responsibilities for any shady dealings which he initiated and that you remain in the background."   
  
John fought very hard to remain at his calmest and most controlled and to suppress the anger boiling up in him. God forbid that he has to make a habit of cajoling this corrupt man with arguments partly stolen from Sir Ian's repertoire. His instincts told him how potentially corrupting this was. He remained poker faced throughout this tussle of wills. From long training,   
  
It came second nature to not let his face show his emotions which inadvertently caused him problems in personal matters but in this case, served his purposes well.  
  
Sir Ian looked warily at John and considered his position, he owed Neil no especial favours though a policy of 'you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours' had enabled his influence to spread far outside the narrow bureaucratic limits of his department. It was the cement that held time honoured British institutions together against the threat of the barbarian hordes .   
  
"I'll do as you suggest, John. But I trust that this might be the start of a more harmonious relationship between the two of us. We haven't exactly seen eye to eye in the past," Sir Ian responded as he reluctantly acquiesced to John but he saw the opportunity to drive a bargain in return.   
  
John said nothing. This was an obvious trap and he knew himself too well to consider it remotely possible that he would be a good boy in future and please his masters. That ran against the habits of a lifetime.  
  
"While we are speaking so frankly, John, is there any truth in the rumours that you are having an affair with Ms Channing?" Sir Ian asked smugly. "Neil Haughton thinks that you are."   
  
"None whatsoever, Ian. You must know how paranoid and insecure politicians are. You know me better than that. Well," and John looked at his watch in an exaggerated theatrical gesture, "I must not hold you up from your work any more. I hope that I have not taken up too much of your time."  
  
"Anytime you care to drop in, John, you know where I am," Sir Ian responded in icy unwelcoming tones. Somehow, he felt he was wheedled into conceding more than he got in return from this Deed character.   
  
John shut the door behind him and his feet took him with uplifted spirits towards the blue skies and fresh air away from the nest of intrigue and double dealing that served the Attorney General and the impartial administration of law and order. 


	73. Part Seventy Three

Part Seventy Three   
  
Jo felt drained. It was almost seven thirty in the evening, and she was still at her desk. This wasn't anything especially out of the ordinary, but today hadn't been an ordinary day. Karen Betts should have been just another case, just another job. but there was far more to it than that. Having first got to know her as a major prosecution witness during the Merriman/Atkins trial, she was now learning more and more about this woman, in an effort to bring another case to court, this time one that directly reflected on Karen. In transcribing the conversation she'd had with her, Jo was perfectly well aware that she was committing the cardinal sin of becoming too emotionally involved with the case. But she couldn't help it. She'd sat here, and watched Karen completely unravel before her eyes, like a jumper whose thread has been pulled once too often. What was she supposed to do, remain aloof, cold, as if Karen's pain hadn't affected her in the slightest. She could almost hear John's voice in her head telling her that yes, to a certain extent, this is what she should do. She'd written down every word of that interview, noted every alteration in tone of voice and facial expression. She'd even recorded the lighting of cigarettes and the exact moment Karen had begun to cry. Jo explained this to herself by thinking that she needed to be able to assess which points of the possible testimony would be most stressful to Karen, and which would therefore leave her open and vulnerable to some cutthroat defense barrister. This was stupid, she eventually thought. She'd been going over and over this for too much of the day. In between every other person she'd seen, she'd continuously revisited the conversation in her head, analysing and deconstructing, trying to decide whether they really would have a case. Picking up the phone, she dialled George's number.   
  
"George, it's Jo, are you busy?"   
  
"Nothing that can't wait. Why?"   
  
"Karen Betts came to see me today, to start putting a case together against James Fenner."   
  
"About bloody time," Was George's firm response. "Do you think you've got a case?"   
  
"I'm not sure. Can I borrow the files you've got on Fenner?"   
  
"Of course. I'd quite like to get them out of the house."   
  
"Are they that bad?"   
  
"Not nice is certainly an understatement. Do you need a sounding board?" Slightly wondering where George's sensitivity and intuition had suddenly come from, Jo said,   
  
"It probably wouldn't do me any harm." George having given her directions, Jo switched off her computer, collected both the transcript of her interview with Karen and Helen Stewart's report, and walked out to her car.   
  
She was intrigued at the thought of seeing George's house. What you can't tell about a person after seeing inside their house just isn't worth knowing. It would also be interesting to see where John had spent a few years of his life, supposedly committed to one woman. when she drew up in George's drive, Jo also wondered if after five days, the black-eye had gone. She walked up the steps and rang the doorbell. When George appeared, she was wearing a pair of black jeans and a white silk blouse. Jo had never seen her so casually dressed before, and briefly thought it suited her.   
  
"I do dress down occasionally, you know," Mocked George as she led her towards the lounge. Jo was impressed. She couldn't help but be impressed. The room they were in stretched from the front of the house to the back, with a large bay window at the front and French windows leading out to the garden at the back. along the far wall opposite the door, was a lovely stone fireplace clearly meant for an open fire. On the wall to the right of the fireplace, though some distance between it and the French windows, was an exquisite baby grand. There was a small TV in one corner, and a cabinet clearly holding a stereo in another. There was an enormous sofa opposite the fireplace with a coffee table in front of it, and numerous armchairs dotted here and there. Jo also noticed a Stubs hanging above the piano and a beautiful but very understated painting of a bowl of lilies over the fireplace. Observing Jo glancing at it, George said,   
  
"John always said he married me for my Monet." Jo laughed, some of the day's tension finally beginning to leave her. "Would you like a drink?" George asked.   
  
"Yes please, I need one after today." After pouring Jo a scotch and herself a gin and tonic, George sat on the sofa and Jo sank gratefully in to an armchair, feeling so exhausted that she thought she might not get up again.   
  
"So," Said George, lighting a cigarette. "Why don't you think you'll make a case out of it?"   
  
"Do you remember the day when we recalled Karen and Fenner to the stand?"   
  
"Vividly," George said drily. "Why?"   
  
"At the end of the morning session, you said that you thought Karen Betts had slept with Ritchie Atkins because she needed to punish herself for not having been able to stop Fenner doing what he did to her."   
  
"That's incredibly insightful for me, I must have been having an off day." Jo's eyes flickered with the hint of a smile.   
  
"I think it goes deeper than that," She said, helping herself to one of George's cigarettes. "After what I heard this morning, I'd bet that Stubs that she went looking for a bit of rough from Ritchie Atkins, because she needed some proof, some evidence that she actually had been raped by Fenner. I think she felt mentally and emotionally raped, but needed the physical action from Ritchie to go with it."   
  
"If she doesn't believe it herself, you've got no chance of getting her to convince a jury."   
  
"I might be wrong, but I think she feels that it was all she deserved." At George's raised eyebrow, Jo handed over the file she'd brought with her. Inside, was the audiotranscription of their conversation that morning, Helen Stewart's report of sexual assault and Karen's initial statement to the police. George began to read. Jo watched her, looking out for any reaction. George hadn't been reading long when she looked up and stared at Jo slightly wide-eyed.   
  
"Charm personified?" Asked Jo, referring to how Karen had described Fenner.   
  
"Yes," Drawled George. "That description is a little too close for comfort." Jo couldn't have put it better herself. The fact that, in describing her first impression of Fenner, Karen had unwittingly given a perfect summing up of John was bizarre to say the least. A little further on, George asked,   
  
"Who's Tessa Spall?"   
  
"I vaguely remembered the case when Karen mentioned her, but I looked it up after she left. Tessa Spall was given life for dismembering her sister, and then savagely attacked a prison officer." George grimaced.   
  
"Now I know why I don't normally do criminal work," She said, returning to the story. Jo's gaze was fixed on George as she continued reading, observing every roll of the eyes, every intake of breath, every wince. Apart from the turning of the pages, George was utterly still. But her face betrayed every involuntary reaction to what she was reading. When she'd finished with the transcript, she moved on to Helen Stewart's report of sexual assault and briefly ran her eyes over Karen's police statement.   
  
"There's an awful lot of pieces missing from this jigsaw," She said eventually.   
  
"I know, but I didn't think today was quite the right time to start digging."   
  
"Fill me in on what she said about Grayling warning her off."   
  
"When the threat of Fenner sending the pictures of her to the press didn't work, Neil Grayling told Karen that he had talked to someone from the CPS who'd said that they weren't going to take up the case. At the time, Karen had no reason not to believe him. On the day when Karen was first in the witness box, Brian Cantwell brought up the issue of the supposedly fake rape allegation. After court, John talked to Karen, and they managed to establish that the contact Grayling said he had at the CPS, didn't exist. John is fairly sure that the person Neil Grayling was in touch with, was Sir Ian Rochester. Let's face it, a prison officer being tried for rape wouldn't exactly put the prison service in a good light, now would it."   
  
"This just gets more corrupt by the minute!" Said George, clearly furious. She got up and refilled their glasses.   
  
"I think whatever you managed to dig up on Fenner might help to fill in some of the gaps," Said Jo. George went to her office at the other side of the house, and returned carrying a folder simply baring Fenner's name. After handing it to Jo, it was George's turn to watch as the other woman read some of the horrors of this case.   
  
On opening the file, Jo was first presented with a report on the suicide of a girl named Rachel Hicks. It simply documented that this nineteen-year-old girl was found hanged in her cell at first unlock, and that the day before she killed herself, she had trashed her cell, and had been moved off the enhanced regime as punishment. It had been assumed by Helen Stewart and James Fenner, that this was all a response to Rachel's mother having put Rachel's ten-month-old daughter in to care.   
  
"Why do you think Fenner was involved with Rachel Hicks?" Asked Jo, having given the document the cross-examination that came naturally to her.   
  
"I don't have all the answers for that one," Said George, "It was simply given to me when I asked for everything connected to James Fenner's time at Larkhall prison. That one's probably the one that needs the most digging." Jo was next confronted by a report of an alleged assault on Michelle Dockley by Principal Officer James Fenner. Both Karen Betts as accompanying officer and Helen Stewart as wing governor had written reports on the alleged incident. The inmate, Shell Dockley, had presented with injuries consistent with having been beaten up, and had alleged that James Fenner had done this to her. During her interview with Helen Stewart, Dockley had also stated that Fenner had been forcing her to have sex with him, and that he had also done this with Rachel Hicks. The police did some preliminary investigation in to the matter, but before they could make up their minds, Dockley withdrew her allegation.   
  
"Karen thinks someone smuggled in a letter from him," Added Jo.   
  
"I used to think the LCD was the most corrupt institution I'd ever come across," Observed George, "But now I'm beginning to wonder." The next thing involving Dockley, was the report of the stabbing. As the resident prison service professional at the time, Helen Stewart had conducted a thorough investigation, concluding that Dockley had intended to stab Fenner, no matter what and that as far as she could deduce, he hadn't been doing anything untoward by being inside her cell.   
  
"Bet she kicked herself for that," Said Jo drily.   
  
"Hindsight's a wonderful thing," Replied George, lighting another cigarette. Reaching over for Helen Stewart's report of sexual assault which George had laid down on the sofa, Jo slotted it in to it's rightful place datewise. Pulling out the next sheaf of papers, Jo whistled.   
  
"I take it that's the one about the escape," Deduced George. Jo read in stunned silence.   
  
"It says here that Fenner was suspected of providing Michelle Dockley and Daniella Blood with the means to abscond, and that when questioned, he became extremely overwrought, possibly displaying the type of violence that could have resulted in the previously alleged assault on Shell Dockley."   
  
"They were looking at him bloody closely," Confirmed George, "They just couldn't prove anything."   
  
"This would be dynamite with a jury if it could be verified. Where the hell did you get all this?" George smirked.   
  
"Look at the author of that last report, the one about Fenner's dose of the third degree. Mrs. Alison Warner, was once a client of mine. Before working for area management, she used to be fairly high up in one of the major credit agencies. I only just managed to save her neck from an enormous fine for violation of the Data Protection Act. It was a good time to call in the favour she owed me, because she was able to give me area management's files on not just Fenner, but most of your witnesses." Jo stared at her.   
  
"You've got absolutely no scruples, have you?"   
  
"There was a lot riding on that case," Said George, her face clouding over. Jo's gaze briefly moved to where there was now only the faintest mark of the healed cut and a slight darkening of the skin to indicate a recently departed bruise. Jo found herself lost for what to say. "I'm okay, really," Said George, correctly interpreting Jo's unspoken question. "It's quite odd having the house to myself again, but I'll get used to it." Turning back to the seemingly endless Fenner file, Jo then extracted possibly the only report putting Fenner in anything resembling a positive light. this document, which almost looked out of place amongst the others, stated that Fenner, with the help of Yvonne Atkins, had uncovered the true killers of Virginia O'Kane, a former prostitute and owner of numerous massage parlours, who had been murdered inside the prison. At the time, it had been assumed that Yvonne Atkins was the culprit. This had been further enhanced by an attempt to abscond by Yvonne Atkins, foiled by James Fenner and Karen Betts. some time after this, Fenner and Atkins had gone to Grayling, the newly arrived governing governor, with the story and the proof that Atkins was innocent.   
  
"Now why would he do a thing like that?" Asked Jo. "He loathes Yvonne, at least that's how it's always appeared."   
  
"Oh, there'd be a reason," Remarked George, sarcasm dripping from every pore. "Perhaps Yvonne could tell you." George handed over the copies of Karen's police statement and the transcript, which Jo slotted in to the back of the file. then Jo seemed to remember something.   
  
"When you were cross-examining Fenner the first time round, you mentioned someone else, someone called Maxine Purvis. Why?"   
  
"I wondered when you'd remember her," Observed George, clearly enjoying the amount of knowledge she had to impart. "Alison Warner wasn't the only person I contacted. Old clients do come in very useful sometimes. Monica Lindsay was convicted of fraud, and spent about nine months at Larkhall, on the same wing where James Fenner was then and is now working. I passed her case on to someone else when it became a criminal rather than a civil case. I wasn't very hopeful that she would be able to supply me with anything useful, as her incarceration was some time ago and she wasn't there for long. But I underestimated how strong friendships made on the inside are. She still has regular contact with two former prostitutes who are still serving time there now. In one of their numerous phonecalls to her, they had talked a lot about Fenner, especially about his sleeping with various inmates. His most recent acquisition before the Snowball Merriman fiasco was Maxine Purvis." Jo began looking through the reports on Fenner, knowing she'd seen that name somewhere. When she found what she was looking for, she stared slightly goggle-eyed at George.   
  
"It says here that Maxine Purvis was one of Virginia O'Kane's killers."   
  
"Yes, and I think you'll find that if you ask Karen Betts about the pair of knickers that were left in her in-tray, you'll discover that they belonged to none other than Maxine Purvis."   
  
"Jesus," Said Jo, "This just gets more complicated by the minute."   
  
"He's been able to get away with everything so far, because Rachel Hicks killed herself, Helen Stewart left, though we don't know why, Michelle Dockley is currently languishing in Ashmore secure psychiatric hospital, and Maxine Purvis also killed herself. If he relies on the fact that area management won't look in to things too deeply, which is exactly what they've done, it's Karen's word against his. With absolutely no physical evidence and his other four victims that we know about either dead, departed or doped up to the eyeballs, I'd say you've got about as much chance of getting this to court, as I had of getting Merriman and Atkins found not guilty."   
  
"He can not be allowed to get away with this," Said Jo furiously. "We've got only half the story so far, and already we've identified five probable victims of his unwanted attention. How many more are there?"   
  
"Considering that he's been a prison officer for about fifteen years, your guess is as good as mine," replied George.   
  
"And what am I supposed to say to Karen Betts?" Asked Jo in disgust, "That there's really no point continuing with this case because Fenner's covered his tracks far too successfully?"   
  
"Do some more digging," Said George calmly, "You never know what you might find."   
  
"This has to get to court," Insisted Jo. "You didn't see her, George, someone usually so strong and controlled, ripped apart by having to describe something that wasn't her fault."   
  
"No," Replied George, still with an air of calm detachment about her, "But I did read your transcript."   
  
"It's hardly the same." Walking over to where Jo was sitting, George plucked the file from her hands. Returning to the sofa, she removed the transcript and briefly ran her eyes over it again.   
  
"Why did you type this out yourself, instead of giving your secretary some work to do?"   
  
"Is it that obvious?" George theatrically rolled her eyes at Jo, holding out the document and pointing to a particular paragraph.   
  
"Considering that you've noted changes in facial expression and the lighting of cigarettes, yes it is."   
  
"It felt like the right thing to do," Replied Jo, somehow knowing that George was going to jump on this admission.   
  
"Why?" George was relentless in her probing.   
  
"I didn't think it was right that some random stranger should hear just how difficult it was for her to say all that she did." Lighting another cigarette, George stared contemplatively at the Monet, using its very subdued beauty to marshall her thoughts.   
  
"Can I make an observation?" She asked after a short silence.   
  
"Would it make the slightest difference if I said no?"   
  
"Not really. I think you're in serious danger of getting too close to this case. Whilst cold, ruthless detachment would be virtually impossible with a situation like this, the type of emotional involvement you are already displaying, won't do you or Karen Betts any favours."   
  
"That's rich," Said Jo without thinking, "Emotional involvement isn't exactly something you could ever be accused of, is it." Immediately these words had been uttered, Jo could have kicked herself. Even with George, that had been going a little too far. She caught the brief flash of hurt in George's eyes, which was soon replaced by the closing down of all the shutters. Instead of promptly responding to such a remark, George breathed slowly through her nose, clearly willing something inside her not to crack.   
  
"No," She said eventually, "It's not." When Jo made a move to speak, George interrupted her. "Why do you think I only usually prosecute and defend companies?"   
  
"The enormous bill you can send them afterwards?" George grinned fleetingly.   
  
"That too," She said, before becoming serious again. "It's utterly impossible to become emotionally involved with a company. Nothing that only really exists on paper has feelings. I can't get attached to it, I can't have feelings for it, and therefore the only ways it can hurt me are either professional or financial. Except for when I've had political pressure put on me to either win or lose a case, it ultimately doesn't matter whether I'm successful or not." Then, seeing Jo's look of incredulity, she said, "It does matter in that I'm a terrible loser, and I won't ever go down quietly or without a fight. But if some large insurance company ends up having to pay a fine that might cripple them, I don't end up feeling guilty because I've failed them. If you can't get a conviction for James Fenner, you'll feel like it was your fault, you'll feel like you've failed." Jo simply looked back at her.   
  
"How can you do it, George? How can you stay so detached knowing everything you do."   
  
"It's as you said," Replied George succinctly, "I haven't seen what it took for her to tell you all this. Somehow, it got to you more than cases usually do. I'm not sure why, maybe it's because you already knew her and were aware of most of what happened as a result of the rape."   
  
"You may be right," Said Jo, "but it's not going to stop me working this case as it should have been a long time ago."   
  
"No, I know," Replied George, "All I'm saying is, be careful." A while later when Jo left, George stood on the doorstep and watched her drive away. Never mind Karen Betts, George wasn't all that optimistic that Jo wouldn't come out of this without a few emotional scars of her own. 


	74. Part Seventy Four

Part Seventy Four   
  
"How many prison officers does it take to change a lightbulb?" Lauren asked her audience as both Michael and Niamh had collared Auntie Lauren on her rare visit to Cassie and Roisin's house. Get her being children's favourite, she thought to herself, after a hard day at work looking after the family business.  
  
Niamh screwed up her eyes in concentration, knowing that this was a trick question. She liked Lauren who was fun to be around and a change of company from Mum and Cassie who she loved dearly but were parents and you know what parents are like. Michael was older and he couldn't decide between one and two.  
  
"Give up kids," Lauren smirked with grown up superiority. Both heads nodded.  
  
"It takes one to change the bulb and six more to kick the ……I mean kick it to pieces… when they found out that it didn't work."   
  
Both children rolled round in laughter at this unexpected twist. It was the way she told the jokes that made them come to life. Lauren reflected to herself that she might make a good stand up comedian.  
  
"Tell me what you were going to say, Auntie Lauren," Niamh's gleeful voice interrogated Lauren, noticing the shift in the gagline.  
  
"That would mean telling you a rude word and I oughtn't to do that," Lauren blushed slightly, wondering how in hell she happened to talk like a prudish grown up. It wasn't as if those who worked for her didn't feel the lash of her sharp tongue.If her friends ever heard how she spoke like that, she would lose all street credibility, and the name of Atkins would not protect her.   
  
"But Cassie does that all the time, especially when she thinks that we're not listening." Don't you, Cassie?" Added a grinning Niamh, as Cassie came upstairs into the bedroom which was nicely cluttered with toys, the odd T shirt flung on the floor.  
  
"Whatever the kids are saying about me, it's not true. I would never dare do such a thing." Cassie jokingly covered up her tendency to swear at the wrong moment. She had, she thought proudly to herself, managed to refrain from uttering the word 'nobbing.' With Niamh's naturally inquisitive mind which insisted on asking the word 'why', she knew for certain that she would be reduced to blushing silence.  
  
"Anyway, you two, you'd better tidy up your bedrooms or you're dead meat." Cassie gave orders in her effective joking fashion, neatly switched the topic of conversation as she had learned to do in a crash course of parenting. She noticed the slight smirk on Niamh's face as they tidied everything away for the night.  
  
Cassie smiled to herself at the way Lauren got off her reserved armchair to sprawl all over the floor with the draft board between her and Michael on the thick pile carpet and a little childhood intensity of feeling came back to her mind when her black counters battled for supremacy on the checker board with Michael's flat round white ones. She always chose the black counters.She wasn't aware of it but it subconsciously reminded her of when she was little and she used to play against Ritchie. However, though she was younger, she could beat Ritchie every time and he would go off in a sulk to mummy and accuse her of cheating. At this moment, she suppressed out of sight and out of feel all memories of Ritchie, childhood included. Her feelings of how he ended his life were still far too raw and painful to let her thoughts take her to anything that would lead her to that traumatic event. When she played with Michael, she deliberately underplayed her very rusty style down to Michael's level. The feel of the thick carpet on her body was very comforting and reassuring.  
  
"I'm sorry I couldn't help you out on your Maths homework, Michael." Lauren said apologetically. That wasn't her best subject at school and, true to form in the family, if the matter basically didn't interest her, she wouldn't bother to pursue it. On the other hand, if something grabbed her attention and interest, she followed the matter through to the bitter end. She had always been like that.  
  
"Never mind, auntie Lauren," Michael kindly replied. "You're really good at drafts."   
  
Lauren smiled wholeheartedly. There was something that playing with Roisin's children that was a welcome distraction in her life, something totally opposite to what her daytime, worktime concerns were leading her and the children brought out a side of Lauren which she did not know that she possessed.  
  
  
  
The rest of the evening was nice and comfortably domesticated. Lauren liked coming over to see Cassie and Roisin as the place had a nice lived in feeling. Roisin looked sideways at seeing Lauren comfortably resting in the armchair and was glad that the sociable friendly Lauren was a million times more relaxed than the Lauren who had poured down such a huge amount of alcohol into herself to blot out the pain of losing her brother. Ugly memories surfaced of the way that Lauren took out her pain and hurt on Karen and tried her very determined best to shut her from out of her life. The very words, uttered with all the fury that only a female Atkins could summon up, seemed bent on wiping out Karen as much as a real weapon would do. Somehow, she had achieved a balance of sorts in her life but she wondered how much of it was skin deep.  
  
"Mummy, I got top marks about the story I did for English the other day, you know about the time you rescued that man in the fire," Niamh rushed over to Roisin with her exercise book in her hand. At the bottom of the page, in red ink was the teacher's scrawled comment of 'excellent' and 9.5.  
  
"No one gets ten out of ten, mummy," The child explained to her, showing graphic drawings of Cassie and Roisin with blackened faces with very lurid flames and cotton wool smoke in the background. Cassie grinned at the sight of the trolley seeing a pair of oversized big feet sticking up in the air.  
  
"That looks like Grayling all right. And he did plonk his big feet everywhere all over Larkhall."  
  
"At least he got us a free pardon so we could get the children back," Roisin said.  
  
"All the others were really jealous that they hadn't got anything nearly as exciting to write about," Niamh chattered away excitedly, plonking herself on Roisin's lap.  
  
"Hey, Niamh. You've got my face a bit wrong. I'm better looking than that."  
  
"What, after going through a wall of flames," Roisin said laughing. "They wouldn't use us right then to pose for OK Magazine. My face was raw all over that it hurt me to kiss you."   
  
Lauren marvelled at the way that this family was entirely open and natural with each other. There were no skeletons in the closet, no grand unmentionables that everyone skated their way past, no pretences of any kind which was something Cassie had brought to them all..   
  
"At least something good came out of our time at Larkhall," Cassie said soberly and thoughtfully.   
  
"Come on, it's bedtime," She called out and the children trailed after her to wash their faces, brush their teeth and to be settled down for the night for as long as they could stretch the routine out.  
  
"I hope you're looking after yourself properly, these days, Lauren," Roisin asked the younger woman in a slightly maternal tone which Lauren found comforting, not an intrusion. It came over naturally and not as some everyday insincere platitude as they sat together on the settee and chatted. "We're sorry we haven't been in touch but you know that we've been busy since the children came back from Aiden's. We have to make sure that he hadn't tried to fill up their heads with all sorts of hurtful lies and deceits."  
  
"You're all right, Roisin," Lauren said reassuringly. "I've been fine. I know that I had lost the plot since…after the trial ended," and Roisin picked up on the way that Lauren shied away from any mention of the suicide."It took a mixture of mum giving me an earbending and me working a few things out for myself. But, as they say," Lauren added briskly, "You have to move on. I've got more than enough to do to keep myself busy at work. If anything, I'm been working too hard recently and coming over today is a welcome break for me."  
  
"The front door is always open to you, Lauren," Roisin said warmly. There was something about her that naturally blended into their lives and not just because she made a surprisingly good childminder which she hadn't known before. "And it is closed to Aiden and his perfect mother unless there is a good reason to let them in."   
  
"Talking about being welcome, Roisin," Lauren said hastily. "I'll never forget the night you and Cassie looked after me that night that…it all happened. I really can't remember too much of what happened that night. I know I was a right cow to Karen but I remember Cassie holding onto me while I cried my eyes out. I needed it right then. Next thing I knew was having both of you next to me in bed. It would have seemed cold and empty on my own and I really don't think that I could have dealt with that one."   
  
"It took me back to when I grew up in Ireland," Came the answer. "It was a two up and two down terraced house in Southern Ireland. My parents were poor then and the house was cold. I used to share my bedroom with my sister and I can remember if one or the other of us were cold or upset, we used to share a bed. Not that I made a habit of it, Lauren as she would grab the blankets and I'd wake up frozen stiff with the blankets her side. Selfish cow," Roisin added laughing, indicating that their relationship was warm and close. "She still lives in Ireland and I don't see as much of her as I would like to but she's got children and so have I, Lauren. One thing I won't forget is the way she stood by me when Cassie and I got together."  
  
"Tell me about it," Lauren asked with interest.  
  
"Well, as you might expect, I look and sound like a very traditional and respectable Irishwoman , with a 'successful marriage' and a good job in England. She was taken by surprise and shocked when the news broke when I had been sentenced to prison but she waited till I got released and we talked it over, the way we had done with everything."  
  
"And she accepted everything, that you are a …lesbian, everything," Lauren said with wonder. In her version of a straight up and down, equally traditional Eastend family, it had taken so much to get it through her head about mum and Karen. It wasn't as if the Atkins family observed the niceties of social conventions in the illegalities that their family fortunes were based on. Yvonne was hardly disgusted of Tonbridge Wells.   
  
"We've always been close," Roisin said dreamily. "Even though we're physically miles apart."  
  
There was a thoughtful silence in which the imperceptible quiet household noises and the dim light created the perfect restful environment that she needed right now.It wasn't the painful silence begging someone, anyone to fill the gap but just pleasant and companionable.   
  
"Don't you ever get worried that Cassie would go off with another woman. She likes flaunting it." Lauren's voice broke in from nowhere from a passing thought that somehow broke the surface.   
  
"Cassie likes to give the impression that she would shag any woman wearing a short skirt and packing a pulse rate but it's all show," laughed Roisin. "She would hate to admit it that but it's true. I wasn't seriously worried, not even when we were playing spin the bottle and she was giving you an introduction on what it is like to kiss another woman. You were enjoying it," Roisin said with a raised eyebrow.   
  
"It was a laugh and I was pissed," Lauren laughed lightly being not exactly certain what she was laughing about. She had always been up for a party, just like mum, even though this was something different. Her instinct was always to go with the flow..  
  
At that point, Cassie tiptoed down the stairs instinctively so as not to disturb the children.   
  
It was unnecessary in a way but she had picked up this habit off Roisin who, in turn, had done this since her children were babies and there was a desperate need to grab a few hours of adult company at a time when she thought she loved Aiden.  
  
"I was just telling Lauren how irresistible you are to women," Roisin called out to Cassie.  
  
"Aren't I just?" Cassie smiled smugly to herself. "You ought to try it some time but I guess you're looking for Mr Right," She finished jokingly but thought that in reality that Lauren was another single independent straight woman. She poured out a drink for the other two in her hospitable way and sat down in between Lauren and Roisin.  
  
"I'm trying, sort of," Lauren replied. "but it's not that easy. There's something about me that scares half the men away and the other half are dick brained anyway. It's as if they hear the word Atkins and run off screaming."  
  
"I'm not sure I can advise you about that one as my personal experience is a bit limited as you might imagine. I can only remember hearing my sister Gail going on about how all men are bastards. I had to keep my mouth shut and not tell her the nobbing obvious thing to do about it," Sighed Cassie, remembering past not very happy family memories.  
  
Lauren grinned to herself when she heard Cassie revert to her normal way of talking. She was equally fond of Cassie's daredevil unique personality as she was of Roisin's warm comforting sensitivity. This was a different situation from when Roisin and Cassie came round to Yvonne's very attractive luxuriant lifestyle with no responsibilities when they could let their hair down. Back in the responsible world, a part of them were different people. It was only when the children were in bed that the umbilical chord could be loosened.   
  
They sank back together in the sofa while soft music played at a low volume from a CD that Cassie had stuck on as there was nothing decent on the television apart from some brain dead quiz or a useless soap. It was the ideal time and place for some reflective conversation between three women who were at ease with each other.   
  
"How did you two both manage with the children when you first got out of Larkhall?" Lauren asked out of interest. She sensed that it must have been an upheaval for Niamh and Michael to abruptly lose Roisin for all those months and, after Aiden and his mother had looked after them for Roisin to come back and for Cassie to take their place. Her upbringing up to the children's age was settled in comparison.  
  
"Don't ask," Cassie said, her expression darkening at the memory. "It was bad enough for Roisin to come back from prison and to realise that Aiden had told them all sorts of stories about her."  
  
"It was the way they were both so uneasy with me," Added Roisin. "I could see it in their eyes and the way that they didn't rush forward to greet me the way they used to. Of course, I kicked Aiden out when we got out of prison and that upset them."  
  
"And when I came on the scene, that made things ten times worse for awhile. I tried to be tough bitch mum giving them discipline as you might expect and that was total disaster. I ended up with Roisin taking them on one side while I felt a spare part and a total failure. Of course, I remembered the way my father tried to discipline me and I used to shout back at him and that made me even worse. I remember breaking down crying upstairs and Roisin was the strong one ."  
  
"She had to learn so much so quickly, how to talk at their level, how to win their confidence in her, how to do the million and one things that a mother needed to do, oh yes, and she learnt to clean up sick which you swore you would never do when we were in Larkhall, didn't you Cassie."  
  
She grinned at the memory as she could remember being cuddled up together on that narrow top bunk at Larkhall   
  
"It took longest of all to accept that I wasn't just being 'Roisin's friend' but that, yes, we shared a bed together at night and we were the same as any other Mum and Dad. Weren't we glad when we got past that one? I can still remember the shag we had that night without worrying whether or not there would be two children storming in to break up the show. OK we had to learn to be quiet but it was worth it."Cassie smiled dreamily at the memory of that night of sexual passion in bed with Roisin.   
  
Lauren listened sleepily to the other two women chattering away and it filled in the picture more of how they managed their lives. When she had gone out clubbing with them, or gone to that bar with Cassie, it seemed like months ago, Cassie was that party animal once again. What she had seen tonight was the other side of Cassie and this was interesting to Lauren.  
  
She tried her best to keep up with the gentle flow of conversation but she found her eyelids drooping down more and more over her eyes as the others seemed oblivious of time. Part of that was their ability to make the most of the time that they had. Presently, she looked at her watch. It was a quarter to ten.  
  
"I hope you don't think I'm cheeky but I'm totally knackered. Would it be all right with you if I crash on your sofa for the night. I won't be safe on the road to drive, even with a black coffee inside me. I'll make sure I'm up early as I know the kids will be up for school tomorrow."   
  
Roisin and Cassie assured her that it would be no trouble at all.   
  
"I'm ready to hit the sack. Coming Roisin?"  
  
Lauren shuffled the cushions around, kicked off her shoes and snuggled up on the comfy settee. She looked at the two women as they tiptoed upstairs together looking so right together and it felt good to her not having to break off and head for home in her car. Both Cassie and Roisin looked down on the sleepy ,dark haired woman tenderly as she looked so peaceful. 


	75. Part Seventy Five

Part Seventy Five,   
  
On Monday afternoon, Karen had taken Jo's advice. She'd gone home with Yvonne and they'd spent a few hours doing nothing more productive than lying on the sofa and listening to soft music. But on the Tuesday morning, she was back in work bright and early, and by the Wednesday morning, was raring to legally take Fenner by the short and curlies. As luck would have it, Jo phoned her soon after nine.   
  
"How are you?" She asked.   
  
"Angry," Was Karen's immediate response. "He's made me show anyone who cares to probe, just how weak I can be, and I don't like that." Knowing that anger can be a very positive emotion in the right hands, Jo said,   
  
"Well, I need to put your anger to good use. There's a lot of questions that need answering. Rachel Hicks being the first."   
  
"How do you know about her?"   
  
"I'm learning," Replied Jo.   
  
"Well, I can't tell you much about her because I wasn't here then."   
  
"Apart from the man himself, is there anyone who was?" Karen turned the chair to face her computer and began scrolling through G wing's list of inmates, looking primarily at their dates of admission.   
  
"Shell Dockley was, but she's currently cloistered in Ashmore."   
  
"I know."   
  
"You really are learning. I'm intrigued as to how you've come across such information." Jo could tell Karen was smiling.   
  
"Lawyers, are not unlike journalists in that we never reveal our sources." Lighting on a possible, Karen clicked on a name.   
  
"There is one inmate who almost certainly has as much info about Rachel Hicks as Fenner and Dockley, Daniella Blood."   
  
"Do you think she'll talk to me?"   
  
"She might, but you'll probably have to come here to see her. She's got absolutely no reason to get licence out of here to see a barrister, and that's if I can persuade her to talk to you. She is coming to see me this morning, and I do know that she wants to see Fenner behind bars almost as much as I do. Denny's the inmate I did the deal with: I told her that if she started behaving, thought about doing some education classes and generally made an effort to convince the parole board to let her out in the not too distant future, I'd go ahead with this case."   
  
"That's certainly some deal," Said Jo drily. "Can she keep it to herself?"   
  
"Oh yeah. Shell Dockley was probably the first person Denny ever really loved. The way Denny sees things at the moment, she couldn't get justice for Shaz Wiley, but her quest for justice for what Fenner did to Shell will never be over until he's behind bars."   
  
"Rachel Hicks isn't the only thing we need to talk about."   
  
"Denny's coming to see me at around ten thirty. If you're not too busy, you could come at about eleven. If Denny will talk to you, you can see her then, if she won't, we can start looking at some of the other gaps. How does that sound?"   
  
"That's fine. I was supposed to be in court today, but the person I was defending pleaded guilty at the last minute so I'm a free agent."   
  
When Karen had been closeted with Denny for twenty minutes, going through the type of education classes Denny might like to think about doing, she knew it was time to tell her about Jo's visit.   
  
"Denny, there's something I need you to do for me. The barrister I went to see on Monday is coming in this morning. She's trying to fill in a lot of the gaps about the time Mr. Fenner has been working with women prisoners. both her and me need to know about Rachel Hicks. I wasn't here when Rachel killed herself, Helen Stewart's left and Shell's in Ashmore. You're the only one who I suspect knows enough about what happened with Rachel to help us." Denny stared at her, clearly remembering things she'd said and done which she would rather be allowed to leave buried.   
  
"Miss, I was a real bitch in those days. I don't want you, or Yvonne, or anyone to know what I was like then."   
  
"I do have access to your prison file," Said Karen quietly, "Which means that I already know about the bullying and the fighting and all the rest of it. Now, has that stopped me from trying to help you get early release?" Denny looked confused.   
  
"No, but, I don't understand."   
  
"We all do bad things in our lives, some of them things we can't put right. But that doesn't mean we should hide away from it as if it has never happened. By telling me and my barrister everything you can about Rachel and Mr. Fenner, that could be considered your way of making up for whatever it was you did. Any possible evidence we can get on him might help to put him behind bars."   
  
"Miss, are you going to talk to Shell about Fenner, only, she knows more about him than anyone, innit."   
  
"I'll talk to Shell if I possibly can, yes."   
  
"This barrister, is she nice?"   
  
"Yes, she is," Said Karen with a smile, wondering just what type of nice Denny's question referred too.   
  
Before Karen could get anything like an answer out of Denny, her secretary put her head round the door to announce that Jo had arrived. When Jo was shown in, Karen noticed with amusement that Denny looked her up and down with enormous interest.   
  
"Jo, this is Denny Blood. Denny, this is Jo Mills."   
  
"Are you gonna nail Fenner?" Asked Denny succinctly, but Jo remained unfazed.   
  
"I'll do my best." Sitting back behind her desk and gesturing to Jo to take a seat near Denny, Karen said,   
  
"Denny was just about to tell me whether or not she would enlighten us both about Rachel Hicks." After again running her critical gaze over Jo's immaculate but understated form, Denny replied,   
  
"Anything that puts that wanker behind bars is worth doing, innit." Giving Jo a brief look to tell her that what you see is usually what you get with Denny, Karen began the questioning.   
  
"When did Rachel arrive?"   
  
"About a year before you did, around the same time as Miss Stewart. She was a YO, only nineteen, and she had a little girl. Maddy her name was. Rachel had this picture of her. Not long after she arrived, Fenner got her a job in the wing office, making tea and that. Bet that's how he picks up all his birds," Then realising that Karen had also been one of Fenner's women, "At least the ones on the inside anyway." Jo, who had been focussing solely on Denny, raised a questioning look at Karen. Correctly interpreting Jo's glance, Denny said, "That wasn't how it was with Shell and Maxi, they were both too," Denny turned her head this way and that looking for the right word, "Too hard, too strong, too much top dog of the wing to ever get a job making cups of tea for Bodybag, Sylvia Hollamby all day. Good thing they weren't ever here together. But it was after Fenner got Rachel the job that he started screwing her."   
  
"How did you become aware of this?" Asked Jo.   
  
"It was friggin obvious. She couldn't leave him alone, like a bloody lapdog she was. Then he put her up on enhanced, so as she'd have her own cell. But the stupid dickhead put her in the one next to Shell. Let's face it, if you've got two women on the go, you don't put them next door to each other, do you." Jo privately thought John could learn a lesson from this. "Then Shell tried to use Rachel to get Nikki Wade searched by the DST. She got Rachel to write to them saying Nikki Wade had drugs in her cell. I think it was when Fenner had a go at Shell for it that she worked out he must be sleeping with Rachel." Here, Denny faltered. Going on would mean telling Karen, someone she was beginning to like and respect, things that Denny knew would alter Karen's view of her. Sensing something of this, Karen said,   
  
"Denny, whatever you did then, you won't be punished for it." Denny laughed scornfully.   
  
"A few days down the block ain't the problem, Miss."   
  
"Then what is?" Denny gave Karen a hard, level stare.   
  
"I don't want Yvonne knowing about this," Denny said quickly. The light dawned in Karen's mind. It wasn't so much her disapproval Denny was afraid of, but Yvonne's.   
  
"She won't," Assured Karen. Giving her one last, wary glance, Denny continued.   
  
"Shell might have been Queen of the wing in those days, but it was me who got everything done. Searching new cons for drugs, protecting Shell, warning off Rachel Hicks, you name it. I ain't proud of it, but that's how it was." She hesitated again, but seeing no sign of recrimination from either of the two women, she said, "We poured hot tea over her at first, made it look like an accident, even old Bodybag thought it was. She made the big mistake of whining to Fenner. He had a go at Shell. So, Shell got me to kick the shit out of her. Rachel thought she was meeting Fenner for a shag, but instead she got a kicking from me." By now, Denny was looking steadfastly at the floor, refusing to meet the gaze of either woman. "Jesus," She said suddenly, "I never meant for her to go and top herself." Jo briefly touched Denny's hand.   
  
"Denny, one thing I've learnt during my career, is that if a person chooses to kill themselves, that is absolutely their choice and no one else's. No matter what you or anyone else said or did, that final decision was Rachel's and hers alone."   
  
"Then, we found out that Rachel's mum was bringing in her daughter to see her. They're not usually so hard about searching people with kids, so Shell told Rachel to get her mum to bring in some drugs for her. Rachel tried, she phoned her mum and asked her, but she said no. Shell threatened her, said that if Rachel's mum didn't bring the drugs, she'd get someone to hurt Rachel's kid. But Rachel's mum didn't bring her kid, because she'd put her in to care. Shell kept winding Rachel up, and Rachel trashed her cell. Instead of putting her down the block, Miss Stewart put her back on basic. I think she thought that Rachel having her kid put in to care was," Again, she searched for the right phrase.   
  
"Extenuating circumstances?" Supplied Jo.   
  
"Yeah, yeah," Agreed Denny. "Mr. McAllister came to see her." Then, at Jo's questioning glance, she added, "He was Rachel's personal officer. He tried to talk to her but Rachel didn't want to know. Fenner came to see her. I don't know what he said to her, but if it was anything like some of the things he's said to Shell, it was probably a version of why had he ever shagged anyone like her. That's basically what he said to Shell when he came back after being suspended. After lock up, Rachel wouldn't stop crying. I told her she was getting on my tits but it didn't make no difference. Eventually, me, Crystal and Zandra went to sleep, and when we woke up in the morning, she was dead. I shouldn't never have done half the things I did to Rachel, but I ain't taking all the blame."   
  
"I don't think anyone's asking you to," Replied Jo, attempting to get her head round the subculture of violence and fear that had clearly sent the unsuspecting Rachel in to the waiting arms of Fenner.   
  
"Will any of that help?" Asked Denny, clearly not wanting the revealing of her past wrongs to have been in vain.   
  
"It might," Said Jo, "But I may need to talk to you again."   
  
"Sure, whatever," Replied Denny, giving Jo a small smile. When Denny had left to return to the wing, with a promise from Karen that she would come and se her later, Karen asked her secretary to make her and Jo some coffee.   
  
"So, any thoughts?" Asked Karen, lighting a cigarette.   
  
"Plenty," Admitted Jo. "I never knew so much could go on in a prison that the officers clearly had no idea about."   
  
"Yes, it does take you by surprise at first. Some of the scams Yvonne got going while she was here, don't bear thinking about."   
  
"How do you do it?" Asked Jo, "How do you remain so calm in the face of a story like the one we've just heard?"   
  
"I have to," Replied Karen succinctly. "When you defend someone in court, you have to believe that they are, without doubt, innocent in order to defend them properly. Perhaps as an extension of that, I know, that the vast majority of people who come to me are definitely guilty. But if I ever dwelt on the crimes they'd committed either outside or inside prison, I wouldn't ever be able to help most of them. Take Denny for example. Clearly, her bullying of Rachel Hicks did play a part in Rachel killing herself. But if I even briefly thought about this fact every time I saw Denny, there's no way I'd be able to remain impartial enough to help her change her outlook on life." Jo was impressed with this argument.   
  
"John was right," Said Jo, "You would make a good barrister." Karen grinned.   
  
"Fighting my corner is something I've always been good at. But, as a single parent and a female wing governor, I suppose it comes with the territory. I had Ross when I was eighteen, and I appear to have been justifying myself ever since." Realising they had the raising of young children without a father's support in common, Jo was again reminded of her words to John on Monday of how Karen's situation could so easily have been her own.   
  
"I need to know some more about Michelle Dockley," Added Jo. Karen walked over to her filing cabinet and dug a thick folder out of the bottom drawer. Handing it to Jo, she said,   
  
"When Shell was transferred to Ashmore, I broke one of the rules that until then I'd always adhered to. I made a copy of Shell's prison file, just in case this day should ever arise. If you want a word of warning, I wouldn't make any of that bedtime reading." Opening the file, Jo was greeted to the affirmation that Michelle Dockley was currently serving life for murder and torture. Quickly realising that it would take her a good couple of hours to go through everything in there, Jo said,   
  
"Tell me about when she was supposedly beaten up by Fenner." Returning to sit behind the comforting barrier of her desk, Karen began.   
  
"It wasn't long after I'd arrived here. It was a Monday afternoon if I remember rightly. I was keeping an eye on some of the inmates during association, and Fenner suddenly appeared from Dockley's cell, which was on basic at the time, looking flustered. He said that he'd told me she was trouble. I went in to her cell and her face was covered in bruises. I asked her what had happened and she at first said nothing. When I wouldn't take nothing for an answer, she said that Mr. Fenner had done this to her. I took her to see Helen Stewart who was wing governor at the time, and Shell told Helen that Fenner had been forcing her to sleep with him. In his report, Fenner said that he'd caught her using a mobile phone. Considering that it wasn't all that long after this that his wife left him, I suspect that Shell was phoning her. During the interview with Helen Stewart, Shell also alleged that he'd been doing the same with Rachel Hicks. Helen's and my reports, plus one written by Fenner are all in there," She said, gesturing to the folder.   
  
"So, what made her withdraw the allegation?"   
  
"I don't know. There are so many questions that only Dockley has the answers for. I know that with her criminal record and her prison record that she wouldn't make a credible witness, but she seems to hold most of the more valuable cards where Fenner's concerned."   
  
"Do you think she'd talk to you?"   
  
"I'm the only one she ever really did talk too. She told me things that she'd certainly never told anyone else."   
  
"Do you ever wish there were things you didn't know, things you hadn't heard?"   
  
"About twice a week, I'll come across a file for a new inmate, and think, I wish I could unknow that."   
  
"Defense work can be a bit like that. Like you said, belief in a client's story is the one absolute certainty you must have in order to do the job. But when they're found guilty, you feel the need to excise a part of your memory, to go back to before that client, that case." Jo's thoughts briefly strayed to George, and how defending Merriman and Atkins had made her reassess her whole way of thinking.   
  
"You're thinking about George Channing," Guessed Karen correctly. Then, at Jo's amazed look, she said, "Just before the closing speeches, when she told me about Ritchie's having been pressured in to a lot of what he'd done, I remember her saying that they were as guilty as sin and that there wasn't anything she could do for either of them now. I asked her why she'd taken up the case, and her cryptic response told me that this time, political expediency had been considered to be far more important than justice. I got the feeling that she was under as much pressure to deliver, as perhaps Ritchie had been."   
  
"That's about the size of it," Replied Jo, hiding her surprise at Karen's astuteness. "George has learnt recently that cabinet ministers aren't all they're cracked up to be." 


	76. Part Seventy Six

Part Seventy Six   
  
She was sat at home doing some of her work on a PC in the homely basement flat that she shared in a discreet corner of Shepherd's Bush. The large front room was overlooked by the flight of steps from the front door from the entrance lobby up to the quiet street and the fading sunlight peeked in, creating an illuminated patch on the solid foursquare oak table. Behind her, the huge ceiling height bookcase told the story of two lives as read through the books that they had bought.   
  
She flicked her brown shoulder length bobbed hair out of her large eyes while the computer screen of her laptop stared blankly back at her, and her thoughts wavered, lost shape. She oughtn't to bring work home but her previous job had fatally instilled workaholic habits into her that she knew she really ought to resist but didn't. She had a desire for perfection that made her feel irrationally guilty if she skimped on her work so she took the obvious next step of doing that bit of extra work at home. Staying at work on a sunny evening to write up her case notes after the last patient had gone only made her feel more isolated as everyone else in the practice had gone home. She worked as a psychologist and she and her partners were kept busy. Because modern city life was so rootless, it created a syndrome almost of its own and ensured that the referrals to their practice would never dry up. Neuroses and feelings of insecurity were normal in this city, far from the stone solid certainties of her youth spent growing up in an isolated country vicarage. She was tired and overworked, that was the problem. Nothing that a good rest couldn't cure, she thought to herself.   
  
From the outside, she looked much like the other women in the block of flats where she lived , friendly and outgoing. True, she did not indulge in the eternal complaint of the women office workers who lived in the rest of the tall block of Georgian flats. When the sun was shining , they gathered together in the communal back garden where the collective conversation ran along the lines of 'my husband's so helpless, he needs someone to organise every little thing in his life.' She smiled inwardly at them as it was totally obvious to her that they were nestmakers, one and all and wouldn't want interference from their partners at any price in their homes. What they wanted was a relatively malleable man who they could organise while he slaved away as the rising young entrepreneur in the City to bring in a handsome income. It was the woman who ran the home as they conformed to Cosmopolitan's new post feminist consumerist model who enjoyed their rights that earlier generations of women had got so strident about. Theirs was a world where, with their own earnings, they could afford the luxuries of life. They had worked hard from when they had first started work as the office junior and had fitted into their slot in life where they had it made. It was part of working in offices that introduced the outlook in life that nothing existed outside their mould and created that natural conservatism. Where no one and nothing had crossed their paths to challenge their assumptions and there was no major tumult or rupture in their lives, such a way of thinking seemed the natural order of things.   
  
She tended to stay out of such conversations , smiling politely and listening but was ready enough to joke with the others. They found her likeable enough but not too forthcoming about patches of her life. To all intents and purposes, she didn't talk about the normal topic of conversation that the single unattached woman always talked about as they well remembered from their own days. Her flatmate wasn't often seen around outside but they kept themselves to themselves and there was nothing wrong with that. Helen's marked accent spoke of someone who had not grown up within the wide open London suburbs, only a tube ride away from the bustling metropolis. In their eyes, Hatfield was surely the passport to the north, the point where M1, that wide stretch of tarmac slashes its relentless way through the countryside and opened the way up through the central spine of Britain. Her accent spoke of a far off part of the United Kingdom with a much grittier down to earth lifestyle which living in London hadn't softened.  
  
In many ways, she appeared much like the thousands of other single women making a living in the busy hustle and bustle of London life.   
  
The last clubbers reeled out the door, past the "Chix" sign and shouted to each other into the darkened side street while the tall slim woman with short cropped black hair locked up the night's takings in the stout metal wall safe. The loud music had stopped and the utter silence was deafening to her buzzing ears. She ran a practised eye over the club while the two barmaids, June and Terry, scurried around tidying up the place ready for the next night. She knew that they could be trusted to do their job well from when she had first hired them. She had that instinct about people which served her well, not only in her present line of work but in other strange situations in her turbulent life.She had done her stint that night of the week and her business partner was due to take over for the rest of the week. It was an arrangement they had come to which suited them best and divided up the responsibilities nicely. Both of them knew the business inside out and trusted the other to work to the same ideas that they had struggled for so many years to get off the ground. The evening left her eyes smarting from the cigarette smoke and the crick in her back. She had no need of the workout videos that some minor soapstar lent her name to for a nice fat percentage on the sales.   
  
She clicked off the lights at the back while the two barmaids slipped their coats on and made their way to the door.  
  
"Night Nikki," they both called out as they made their way for the door and shot out.  
  
She was about to reply but they were gone. Teenagers, she smiled, they are always in a hurry everywhere. She was one once, she reminisced fondly.   
  
She slipped on her favourite smart long black coat and made her way to the Underground station round the corner, past the turnstiles, along the ancient worn out while tiled corridors and into the world of mechanical clanking sounds that pulled her homewards to the garish green tiled ceiling of Shepherd's Bush underground station. She was tired and her bed was ready and waiting for her.  
  
Helen Wade was up early while her partner lay sleepily in bed from the night before. The indeterminate mound under the quilt showed her presence. Helen was a morning person, always offensively bright and cheerful while her partner took ages to rub the sleep out of her eyes and let her thoughts collect themselves before she could face the day. The first cigarette of the day was her call to action.  
  
Helen wandered through to the front room in her dressing gown, her hair still rumpled and fished out the copy of the Guardian which had been set apart from the rest of the papers which came and went. That front page story was vividly connected to a past life to which she felt half a stranger, even from the photo of her slightly younger self in a blue two piece suit and short slightly curly hair. That reminder of the past which she wanted to forget was kept out of sight in the photograph album in a seldom disturbed top cupboard.   
  
Helen picked up the paper and stared at the headline story. This had niggled away at the back of her mind when the newspaper flopped its way through the letter box the same way as it did every normal morning. Her first instinct was to hide it away with everything else in her past but logical disposal of the sort of files that she handled didn't work where it personally affected her life. She had had strange dreams where images of her past came back to haunt her. It was always that same face, sometimes sly with fake innocence and downcast eyes, sometimes when the real man emerged, a mingled expression of fury, and a deep rooted personal antagonism for all that she represented which he took as a personal insult. Right then she saw him near the very end, that terrifying assurance of power over her from the one slipup that she had made, small but fatal. It was only later on that Nikki was hunting round for the morning paper that she found it and drew the correct conclusion.  
  
"What's up, darling?" Came that muddy echo of that soft musical voice from out of her dreams while she fought a losing battle with that man to stop him going through the drawer in her office.   
  
"Only another bad dream," Helen mumbled as the bedside light was switched on, banishing her nightmare visions and only Nikki's gentle troubled face and the tender touch of her fingers was there to soothe her fears away. She had jumped through time and space where she was now Helen Wade, psychologist and she had left her old identity, Helen Stewart Wing Governor of Larkhall far behind in her dreams.  
  
Nikki said nothing as she knew only too well, her lover's tendency to bottle up her fears, even with her nearest and dearest and the fear in Helen's eyes betrayed herself. it was strange that Helen worked as a psychologist for a living understanding other people's disturbed psyches. It was as if this enabled her to keep her own problems at a distance.  
  
"Helen, you have to deal with this," Nikki said gently to her one day.  
  
"I'm not going back to Larkhall or having anything ever to do with the place. Not ever," Helen said with real passion and fear. "I've done everything to cut myself off from that part of my life. I don't even drive near that part of London but take the long way round.   
  
"So that's what you've been dreaming about," Nikki said softly, her fingers resting against Helen's bare clammy skin at which point Helen nodded.   
  
"I even changed my name so that none of them could trace me," Helen finally blurted out.  
  
"So that's why you did it?" Nikki asked her softly, eyebrows raised. Only Helen could tell that this admission had hurt Nikki. She could remember with total delight the day that Helen had insisted on changing her name to Wade in the first flush of their life together and the passion with which they shared their first full night together.She had learned from Larkhall to count to ten before speaking in fraught moments. She had not only got her English degree at Larkhall but had learned patience also.  
  
"Yes, Nikki," Helen said apologetically. "But I did it also because after all the shit I landed on you, even though I didn't know half the time what I was doing, I wanted to make it up to you and give myself totally to you, as a demonstration of my love for you. You must believe me, Nikki."   
  
The total sincerity with which Helen spoke convinced Nikki. Helen had changed since she had left Larkhall as Nikki had set to work, lovingly but with great determination, on Helen's curious habit of speaking indirectly and holding a card up her sleeve. As Nikki was the one with the confidence and experience of living together with another woman and Helen was the learner, Helen gratefully cast aside the burdensome shackle of that desire to be boss.  
  
"All right, Helen," she smiled and kissed her gently on the lips. "But sometime, someday, you have to face it. But you decide when."   
  
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans," came that hoarse gentle voice from her music system with the steel drum accompaniment that soothed her thoughts. She smiled to herself that John Lennon had it about right. That said everything about her time at Larkhall. The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there. She'd read that in a book and that was also true.   
  
"Didn't know that Yvonne Atkins had a son, Nikki," She called out rather too loudly for the fragile figure in the bedroom.  
  
"Neither did I," came the sleepy mumble from still under the bedclothes. "Yvonne only talked about Lauren."  
  
Then Nikki sat up bolt upright.   
  
"Has the morning paper come, Hel?" Nikki asked casually as a way into the conversation as she whipped her jeans on.  
  
"No, but the paper with the report of the suicide of Yvonne's son and a woman called Snowball Merriman has." Helen's voice floated up from downstairs announced in casual tones .   
  
'I may be on the way out but I will drag you all the way down with me.' she remembered uttering her very last words to that man as she turned to leave. Well that hadn't happened but who knows, some other person would succeed where she had failed. That bastard's luck couldn't run forever. Sooner or later, he would slip and fall.   
  
A dishevelled Nikki rushed in the front room to see a very relaxed Helen stretched out with the paper in front of her with the headline. "Two die in suicide pact."  
  
"OK so far,Helen." Nikki asked.  
  
"I'm fine, Nikki, so long as I keep it in mind that I'm a spectator, I'm not in charge. It was that instinct that was scaring me that somehow, I'd be pulled back to Larkhall whether I wanted it or not if I as much as started reading the paper.I'm a reader, just like anyone else only I know, sorry, knew the place. Here" and Helen patted the settee next to her, "Sit here next to me and read it with me."   
  
It was Nikki's turn to be apprehensive as she had never read the paper either, supposedly respecting Helen's right to lock away unpleasant memories. Now Helen had made her choice, Nikki's options were left open.   
  
It was a competently written article, rapidly sketching in the background of the two people concerned. The son of a well known Eastend gangster family and his would be American actress girlfriend who was held in this country on drug smuggling charges who had set fire to Larkhall and caused the death of a young prisoner called Shaz Wiley…….  
  
Helen turned white. "I interviewed her once. I set up that meeting with the widow of the man she had killed with her poisoned oysters. That was the meeting which you tried to gatecrash with the tea trolley doing your 2 Julies impersonation……. "  
  
Nikki gave a wry smile at the description but the memory of the desperation with which she sought out Helen to heal a tare in their relationship was one she would as sooner forget.  
  
The article went on to describe the way that the home made bomb had exploded in the corridor next to the library causing flames to sweep through that part of G wing causing her death and nearly caused others to die…….  
  
"Who the hell were the others, Helen. Anyone we might have known?" Nikki demanded of the paper in vain. It could have been any number of the women she had known and had cut herself away from so that they could move on away from Larkhall. She couldn't pretend to herself that she was doing it for Helen's sake.  
  
The article gave the bare details of the facts of the matter, Mr Atkins's overdose of barbiturates and the razor blade that cut Snowball Merriman's wrist. It did not offer up any suggestion as to why the couple had committed suicide so soon after being sentenced to prison nor how it was arranged…..  
  
"How do you think Yvonne is feeling, Helen? I was close to her once," and the last word expressed all Nikki's regret at the distance she had put between her and Yvonne, "……..and I know how she felt about Lauren. I never knew that she had a son. She never told me about him."  
  
"Don't be a daft cow, Nikk," she could hear Yvonne's mocking but gentle Eastend accent and that warm smile despite the affectation of tough bitch. "You've got your life to lead. You've done your bit. I'll be here to carry on taking the piss out of Bodybag………"   
  
Everything signed, sealed and delivered for the reader to digest and move on to the next column  
  
Nikki flicked the TV on and a black and white film showing an angry looking young man with an aquiline nose and wearing dark glasses was talking in an impassioned American accent at the viewer.   
  
"You'll never understand it. It'll go right past you. ……..I'm not going to read any of these magazines. I mean, they've got too much to lose for printing the truth. You know that.  
  
They'd go off the stands in the day if they really printed the truth……the truth is a plain picture, a plain picture of a tramp vomiting into the sewer and next door to the picture Mr Rockefeller on the subway, going to work. Any sort of a picture. Just make some sort of collage of pictures which they don't do.   
  
Just these facts. There's no ideas in Time magazine. Even the article which you're doing, it can't be a good article. Because the guy that's writing the article is sitting at a desk in New York. He's not going out of his office. He's going to get all these fifteen reporters and they're going to send him a quota……….All right, you do your job in the face of that and how seriously you take yourself, you decide for yourself."  
  
"Do you believe in what you're saying." came the answer.  
  
"Ageless portrait of Bob Dylan, the young folksinger looking enigmatically at the world from behind his sunglasses as he tours England with his unique brand of spiky humour and folk protest songs and his patented anti interview style with the faceless reporter from Time Magazine in 1965."ran the critical review in the colour supplement.  
  
Nikki clicked the TV off. Interesting though the film looked , there was a more urgent consideration.  
  
"I ought to write to Yvonne. It is the least that I can do."  
  
"And then you'll want to meet her and you'll drag us back to Larkhall, Nikki. Everything that we've strived for, you are putting at risk." Helen's panic stricken voice and the expression also pleaded with Nikki not to do it.  
  
"Yvonne must be out by now. You know how prisoners come and go, well most of them," Nikki reasoned though a sick feeling in her stomach reasoned that the three appeal court judges, resplendent in the finery of their wigs and robes pronounced on Nikki, the prisoner in the dock, her freedom or else she would be the one stuck forever behind prison bars.  
  
"All right Nikki but you promise for my sake to be careful," And she clung tightly onto Nikki, the one person who might bring her back to a nightmare to be relived. 


	77. Part Seventy Seven

Part Seventy Seven   
  
Jo had spent most of the rest of Wednesday wading through the file Karen had given her on Michelle Dockley. It really was beginning to look like a jigsaw, a five thousand piece puzzle comprised of pain and suffering, mostly at the hands of one James Fenner. But on the Thursday morning, Jo hit on one large section of the network of fragmented stories that she couldn't solve through George's dubious contact at area management or from Karen's illicit photocopies. Going through the details of the witnesses she'd used for the Merriman/Atkins trial, she found Yvonne's phone number and dialled it.   
  
"Yvonne Atkins?" Came the fairly cheerful reply.   
  
"Yvonne, it's Jo Mills."   
  
"Hi, how's it going?"   
  
"Well, I've come to a part of the trail that I think you might be able to help me with. Does the name Virginia O'Kane mean anything to you?" Yvonne laughed mirthlessly.   
  
"Considering I almost got fitted up for her murder, yeah, I'd say it does."   
  
"Karen seems to know surprisingly little about why Fenner was prepared to help you find her true killers. I was wondering if you could fill me in."   
  
"With pleasure. Though it starts a long time before she even died. When O'Kane first came in to Larkhall, she was in a wheelchair, but it was fake. She did it to get a lighter sentence."   
  
"There was a man not so long ago who tried to avoid a trial by faking a severe catatonic state. It happens."   
  
"Well, Fenner being Fenner figured he was on to a winner and took sympathy on her. At some point during his getting her a cell on her own, and generally easing his way in to her favour, he must have persuaded her that it might be a good idea for someone to keep an eye on her establishments while she was inside. You do know what she was in for?"   
  
"For running various brothels and lifting credit cards from clients."   
  
"Yeah, pretty much. So, in exchange for getting her everything she wanted on the inside, plus a cut of the takings, Fenner starts keeping an eye on her brothels. I figured he must be doing something like this and I got Lauren to check it out. he was going under the name of John Farmer, stupid git, and picking up the takings as regular as clockwork. Finally having something concrete on Fenner was a good feeling, believe me. Helen Stewart was the acting number one in those days, and I took it to her. Not taking a con's word for it, she wanted dates and places, somewhere she knew she could catch him out. Lauren did a bit more digging, and I supplied Helen with a place he was sure to be and let her do the rest."   
  
"And did she?"   
  
"I haven't got a clue. The number one, acting or otherwise, doesn't owe a con anything as simple as an explanation. You'd have to ask her."   
  
"There's the problem, she's proving utterly unobtainable."   
  
"I'd give anything to know why she left."   
  
"Yes, that's yet another of the mysteries coming to light with this case."   
  
"I thought lawyers could lay their hands on anyone," Said Yvonne, the challenge clear in her tone.   
  
"Not always," Admitted Jo regretfully. "We can only do so much before we begin to deviate from the straight and narrow. But tell me the rest of the O'Kane debacle."   
  
"On the day that Helen Stewart left, O'Kane was drowned. It was assumed I'd done it because I'd been seen and heard rowing with her and I was the one who found her, not something I think I'll ever forget. At first, I thought it was Fenner. O'Kane had been about to squeal on him for looking after her brothels. So, I thought it was him and he thought it was me. Yet it wasn't either of us. Just before O'Kane had arrived in Larkhall, Maxi Purvis and her two sidekicks had come on to the wing. Slim, dark-haired, a bit of a tough nut, certainly not above shagging a screw to get a foot in the door." Jo had to smile at Yvonne's turn of phrase. "Anyway, after O'Kane's death, I asked two of my mates, the Julies, who were the wing cleaners and so had access to more of the wing than anyone else, to pick the lock on Fenner's locker to see if they could find any incriminating evidence against Fenner."   
  
"And so enter the knickers and the porn mag."   
  
"Oh, Karen told you about that, did she. Yeah, a pair of skimpy red knickers and a magazine full of pictures of scantily clad female couples. Fenner might claim to loathe those who sleep with their own sex, but it doesn't stop him ogling pictures of them. We'd heard on the grapevine that they were engaged, so one of the Julies left that little package in Karen's intray. Then, I tried to escape and got in to a fight with Karen. It's funny to think about that sometimes. I gave her the best black-eye I think I've ever given anyone, and now that's the last thing I'd ever do." Yvonne went suddenly quiet, showing a level of introspection that also gave Jo a moment's contemplation.   
  
"You really love her, don't you," Said Jo, almost in wonder.   
  
"Yeah," Said Yvonne in surprise. "I've never actually put it in to those terms, but yeah, I guess I do. There isn't anything I wouldn't do for her."   
  
"Would you try and find Helen Stewart?" Having half expected this ever since Jo's admission that lawyers couldn't achieve miracles, Yvonne grinned.   
  
"Now what makes you think I can where you can't?"   
  
"Well, not to put too fine a point on it, you have access to methods which, as a champion of the law, I cannot be seen to use or encourage." Yvonne laughed.   
  
"Very nicely put. I'll see what I can do. I've got an address for her one time girlfriend, so that should be a good starting point." Then, on observing Jo's careful silence, she added, "Helen Stewart was also a jailer with a thing for one of her cons. That place seems to breed them."   
  
"I think I've learnt more about human nature in the last few days than in the last ten years," Said Jo in astonishment.   
  
"Prison is the ultimate social equalizer," Replied Yvonne, "The rich and the poor, the well-educated and the illiterate, the black and the white, the straight and the gay, all shoved in to one confined space. You can't fail to be different in some way when you come out of prison. I'll see if I can track down Helen Stewart, and I'll see if Lauren ever took any pictures of Fenner in the vicinity of O'Kane's brothels. I didn't ask at the time because Helen wanted to collect her own evidence. I think her words were, I don't do deals with prisoners. But Lauren might have taken some anyway."   
  
"Thank you, Yvonne, you've been a great help."   
  
"Anything that puts Fenner behind bars is worth doing," Replied Yvonne, uncannily echoing Denny's words of yesterday.   
  
"How strange," Commented Jo. "You've just used the exact words Denny did yesterday."   
  
"Oh, yeah, Karen said you'd spoken to her. She's like one of mine is Denny. I looked after her through some of the crap she went through with her mum. Sometimes I think I try to make up with Denny for some of the things I got wrong with my own kids. I tried to legally adopt her after I got out of prison, but she's over twenty one so I couldn't."   
  
"Yvonne, for the moment, I would like you to keep what you're doing for me from Karen. After what she's told me, I'm not sure that Helen Stewart will want to become involved in this case. I wouldn't want to get Karen's hopes up."   
  
"But she'd have to. It's the only way to put Fenner behind bars. apart from Karen, Helen Stewart's the only decent witness you've got."   
  
"I know," Said Jo gently, "But it has to be her choice. Please do this for the time being, Yvonne."   
  
"Okay, but Helen Stewart had better have a bloody good reason for not getting involved."   
  
A short while later when they ended the call, Jo sat for a moment, overwhelmed by the feeling of close attachment between some of the most unlikely people, clearly displayed in the way Yvonne had talked about both Karen and Denny. Yes, from what she'd learnt ever since Karen's visit to her on Monday, Jo knew that prison could cultivate some of the most hateful, despicable acts she'd ever heard of. But Yvonne had without realising, shown her a positive side of prison, a fostering of deep, lasting emotional bonds forged between members of every echelon of society. Yvonne was right, prison was the great social leveller, an enormous cauldron of humanity that could help or hinder those who were unfortunate enough to land within its midst. For such as Rachel Hicks and Maxine Purvis, there would never be anything other than the type of release that at some point stole everyone from their place of existence, and the likes of Michelle Dockley would forever remain in limbo, waiting for their minds to acquire the agility necessary for them to return to some semblance of normality. But for Yvonne, and possibly Denny, prison hadn't been all bad. Yvonne appeared to be content in her relationship with Karen, and clearly prepared to do whatever she could for those she loved. In spite of recently losing her son in the worst way possible, Yvonne seemed to know what she wanted from life, to have a purpose, a means of keeping going. 


	78. Part Seventy Eight

Part Seventy Eight   
  
"So after days of work, the firm's not got as much as a hint as to where Miss Stewart is hiding out, is that it, Lauren?"   
  
"Whatever she's done, she's done a better job of hiding her tracks than the guys who pulled off the Great Train Robbery," Came the succinct reply.  
  
This led to a long meditative silence as two very sharp female minds ran over the impossible conundrum which had also baffled Grayling's 'old boys' network. The only difference was their intelligence network used different contacts and ran on slightly more illegal lines of operation and control.   
  
"How do you find an ex Wing Governor of a prison who doesn't want to be found?" Yvonne said meditatively, helping herself to a glass of wine and reaching for a cigarette .  
  
"Simple. By tracing her girlfriend as well and where the trails meet, there they are," Lauren said promptly, a blinding revelation illuminating her hopes. Why in hell had they used straight line thinking up till now?  
  
"What if they've split up? It happens."   
  
"Is that the voice of experience talking?" Lauren asked mockingly.  
  
"We've got to use every possible lead, however daft it sounds. But then again they could have done a runner overseas. Nikki was always talking about going to San Francisco. That's the place they all head off to."  
  
"Never knew that Nikki wanted to hang out with all the hippies," Lauren said teasingly at which point Yvonne threw a cushion in Lauren's direction, half playfully, half in exasperation.   
  
"What did Nikki do for a living before she got banged up?" Lauren said in a slow meditative voice.   
  
A light visibly dawned on Yvonne's face as that priceless bit of data was retrieved from an obscure neglected corner of her massive memory bank and she grabbed for a phone.  
  
"Cassie Tyler here, what can I do for you?" answered the very businesslike tone far removed from her usual manner of speaking.   
  
"It's Yvonne here, you dickhead," came the friendly banter in the unmistakeable voice that did not need any enlightening as to which Yvonne that might be of her wide circle of business and personal contacts that might be. "I want you to track down a list of gay clubs for women and phone me back straight away."  
  
"Is this the Yvonne Atkins that once gave me the brush off saying that she was interested only if there was a six foot hunk of man on the end of it?" Cassie asked teasingly, her grin very audible.  
  
If only there was a way of lobbing a very hard object down the phone that it would clout that smartarse pisstaker round the ear, she thought with gritted teeth much to Lauren's amusement. So long as it was meant in fun, Mum was so good to wind up. She rises to the bait every time.  
  
"Not for me, you stupid plonker," Yvonne's robust tone of voice reverberated down the phone in forcible tones that a sergeant major on a parade ground would admire. "I want to trace Nikki Wade or Helen Stewart. Nikki's the likelier one."  
  
"Hold on, Yvonne," Cassie said as she took the phone away from her ear and gave the luckless office junior who came through the door an earbending. "As you know, I've been out of circulation on the singles scene so I'll have to contact some of my more disreputable friends to help me out. I'll pop in on that gay bar I took Lauren to a month ago and she got me pissed. I'll phone you back."  
  
Yvonne raised her eyebrows at this very interesting fact but shrugged her shoulders. The main thing was that Cassie was on the case and she could be depended on to come up with the goods.   
  
Cassie left work and zoomed off in her blue Peugeot car like a woman on a mission. After cutting past a series of dithering drivers, she reached her destination and was relieved to see the early evening revellers already in their places though it was quiet this time in the evening. Approaching her was a likely source of information, the most promiscuous woman she had ever known and therefore the likeliest to be informative. The downside was that she was totally treacherous.  
  
"Well hello, Cassie. And how is married life suiting you or are you going off the idea?" that irritating ex of hers smiled invitingly. "I must say, I liked the look of that dark haired girlfriend that you sneaked off with."  
  
The place gave her a peculiar but half pleasurably nostalgic feeling of past experiences, past existences but Cassie was in no mood to tell that treacherous posh bitch that she was way off the mark as usual.  
  
"Never you mind the mate I was having a friendly drink with, Virginia," Cassie snapped, laying heavy emphasis on the word mate and sarcastic emphasis on the woman's grotesquely inappropriate name. "I am sure that you are the same sleeparound woman that I've known you to be. I'm asking you as a friend for the names of the gay clubs. Not the big cattle markets, just the smaller more intimate places."   
  
"You should know. You've been to them all, Cassie darling," The woman with the long dark hair teased her.  
  
This woman is going to play stupid games, Cassie thought and I'm going to be stuck here forever.  
  
"I'll let you into a secret, Virginia," Cassie said in a low confiding whisper. "I do want to pull that bird I brought in that night only she's a bit nervous. It's her first time. I need the name of a few places that won't scare her off."  
  
An evil smile spread over Virginia's very made up face. She loved all the juicy gossip and the thought of spoiling Cassie's virtuous act gave her malicious pleasure. She would have loved to be the one to take Cassie off the straight and narrow but that woman Cassie was with would do very nicely.  
  
"Well, if I were taking a woman out on her first night, Cassie, I couldn't do better than taking her to 'Chix'.I'll write down the address for you," and she fished around in her handbag for a pen and paper. "Very discreet, very friendly. If you take her there, she'll be yours. You tell me how you got on. As you know, I love to hear all the gossip."  
  
"I'm sure that you do, Virginia," the smile on Cassie's face pulled at her unwilling facial muscles. "You'll be the first to hear when I shag her."  
  
She's fallen for that one, hook line and sinker, Cassie thought with grim satisfaction. If she had made a request on straight friendship grounds, she would have been stuck here all night with that bitch acting hard to get and she would have had to offer to spend the night with her to get the information. Once she appealed to the meanest lowest human motives imaginable, she gets the information at once. Briefly, the very attractive memory of kissing Lauren at that spin the bottle party flashed into her mind but this cow wasn't going to know that.  
  
"You're not staying for a drink,Cassie?" drawled Virginia.  
  
"Some other time. I've got a hot date waiting for me. At least, she will be when I've finished with her." Cassie smiled, making her best theatrical exit in her brief role as seductress before zooming off in her car to be welcomed by her beloved, Roisin and their kids. Before she put the key into the ignition, she reached for her mobile.  
  
"Right, Lauren. I'm off to this 'Chix' place. How do I look?" Yvonne asked nervously. "I've never been in a place like this before."  
  
Lauren sighed at her mother who, most unusually, was nervous and was obvious about it.  
  
"You're going to be all right. You're going to see Nikki, remember. She said that Mondays are quiet nights. You'll have time to talk and catch up on the old days and everything. Now, leave it to me, you need a little bit of adjustment," And Lauren straightened Yvonne's clothes in the same way that mum did for her when she was little and about to set off for school.  
  
Yvonne turned off the main thoroughfare where middle England walked the streets and left up a quiet sidestreet, past the glass windowed office front. She looked up and spotted the sign in question. Before entering the front door, she hesitated a second while she plucked up her courage. This place isn't bleeding Sodom and Gomorrah, you stupid cow, she thought to herself, I'm one of them now anyway. You've gone into some dodgy criminal dives in your time that would make anyone else run away screaming in fright.  
  
With that thought in mind, she opened the door and tried to adjust her eyes to the relative gloom. The place was nice and welcoming, the sort of place she could go with Karen quite easily.  
  
"Yvonne!" A familiar well modulated voice carried across the club and Nikki virtually ran over to her with a huge smile on her face. She gave her a big hug and kissed her on the cheek.  
  
"It's been so long since I've seen you. What are you having? The drink is on me for a change."  
  
Immediately, warm nostalgic memories flooded back into both their minds and the taste of the little miniature bottles of spirits was all the sweeter and more precious as it was so rare and was thanks to Yvonne's resourcefulness. Now both women were on the outside, both more prosperous but both were alike in not forgetting the days of poverty and deprivation. For that memory alone, both women were not the same as the women who were first taken through the prison gates in a white prison cattle truck.  
  
"Can you two see to everything. I'm going into the back room with an old friend of mine. Any problems, then you come and see me," Nikki called out to the barmaids in a voice of authority. Her evident air of command impressed Yvonne greatly who had direct experience of her background for the first time in her life. Back in Larkhall, ultimately it didn't matter who you were before you were banged up. It was the person you were that mattered and you were stripped of all the accessories from the outside world that were labelled and packaged away until your release.  
  
"I've heard about you and Karen Betts. Tell me, was it the uniform that attracted you the same way that it did for me and Helen?" Nikki's eyes danced with mischief. She couldn't believe her ears when she had heard about the ultra straight Yvonne and the equally ultra straight Karen.   
  
"Piss off, Nikki," Yvonne retorted with all the genuine affection that she had always felt for her.  
  
"I want to say how really sorry I felt for you when I read about the death of your son," she said, every intonation in her voice expressing her heartfelt sorrow for her. That is Nikki all over, Yvonne felt with a tear in her own eye. If those words had come from some bleeding politician, she would brush it and the person away as bullshit but not Nikki.   
  
"I mean I never knew him but if I had, I would have felt for him. Me and the Julies had to deal with Monica Lindsey when she tried to OD on tablets and I remember that kind of desperation in her," She stammered."Why did you never talk about him before?"  
  
"We fell out when Charlie tried to nail Ritchie to the floorboards. I took Charlie's side. Ritchie never forgave me." Yvonne looked away, speaking in flat bitter words that chopped off all emotion on the surface but told an astute observer like Nikki all she needed to know about her real feelings on the matter. The terrifying absence of any mention of Ritchie and the memory of her obvious deep affection for Lauren spoke volumes .Till she read about it in the sort of impersonal newspaper that is usually sold over the counter, she had never known from the very real flesh and blood Yvonne that she even had a son.   
  
"That isn't what I came to see you about, Nikki, not even to talk about old times," Yvonne said presently, her eyes that had been staring vacantly away into the distance and were now being focussed on the other woman. "There are plans to nail Fenner and we were wondering if Helen would help, that is, if you are with her."  
  
"In what way,Yvonne and what sort of plans," Came the sharp reply. The words spurred the old adrenaline rush of the two of them together in another partnership though the mention of Helen's name rang a tiny warning bell at the back of her head.  
  
"Karen wants to land Fenner in the dock on a charge of rape. And we could do with Helen's testimony as Wing Governor as she investigated a lot of Fenner's dirty dealings. Dockley, O'Kane, Rachel Hicks She's an ex suit and you must know that that has more clout than a couple of ex cons."  
  
Nikki was about to flare up in anger at Yvonne to hear herself described that way until a visual flash of the tearful yet authoritative evidence provided by Sally Ann Howe ,a one time police colleague of DC Gossard was instrumental in discrediting him and securing her own release. Things were not the same as when they were in Larkhall. Her own abilities in either running a gay club or running up against the hated screws at Larkhall weren't enough.   
  
"Yeah, Nikki, it's amazing what the difference the right way of presenting a case in court makes. I've had a ringside seat in watching how that murdering tart and my son were nailed up far tighter the legal way than any of my mob could do it. The judge who sent them down is a decent man and I never even knew that such people existed."  
  
Nikki shook her head in wonder and disbelief at Yvonne's new found respect for the law and that ,in contrast, Yvonne of all people, accepted the limits of her own power in the same breath as defining Nikki's.   
  
"So where do I come in, Yvonne?" she asked.  
  
"Can you talk to Helen and persuade her to give evidence in support of Karen."   
  
Nikki bit her lip as the first onrush of delight in seeing Fenner get what was coming to him died down. The vision of Fenner in the dock was totally irresistable and it was much more satisfying and permanent than the time she scared him rigid with his very real fear that she would stick a broken milk bottle in his neck in the same way that she had done for Gossard. The pause for thought recalled Helen's total blind panic at the thought of being slightly involved with the goings on at Larkhall, even in a righteous cause. She knew only too well from Helen her passionate scorn and feelings of hurt that Karen ,of all people, had taken Fenner's side, even to the point of threatening Helen with charges of harassing Fenner of all people. If she was honest with herself, she had mixed feelings about getting involved with a part of her past that she was trying to move on from. There were bittersweet memories of all the blind anger against injustice, all the close feelings of friendship, all the love she had felt for Helen and the pain also. Certainly, Fenner had it coming to him but why them? Surely, they had bled enough from the crucifixion for long enough. Do they have to get up, once again, on the cross?  
  
"I don't know, Yvonne," She said to the other woman's dismay. The light of battle which had so inspired Yvonne in her own will to resist in the past was fading off Nikki's face. "there are a lot of problems with this one. For a start, I know how strongly Helen feels about the way that Karen stood up for Fenner against her even to this day. She had warned her right from the very start what he was really like. For another, Helen is petrified at the thought of going back to a part of the past which she escaped from by the skin of her teeth. She's been having nightmares recently ever since the papers came out with all that trial stuff………"  
  
"That's got bugger all to do with Fenner. He was only one of the witnesses that were stacked up against that murdering tart and her boyfriend."   
  
Nikki winced at the way that Yvonne distanced herself from her own son when he was mentioned in the same breath as his girlfriend.  
  
"You're thinking logically, Yvonne," She patiently reasoned back at her. "The fact that the trial is in any way connected with Larkhall is what she's afraid of."   
  
"Fenner ought to be the one that is bleeding scared of us, not the other way round. I threatened him that he'll be finding out what's on the bottom of the Thames as I had my fingers round his throat if he laid one more finger on Karen," Came the vengeful reply.   
  
"Still the same Yvonne," Nikki grinned broadly at the entrancing vision before her eyes.  
  
"Why don't you talk to Helen. See what she says. She may surprise you and me and herself," Yvonne pleaded with Nikki, something she very rarely did.  
  
"I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll talk to Helen about it but I'm making no promises as to whether or not she'll agree to it. You must understand this and why. In the meantime, why don't you stop here for another drink, Have a look round the place," Nikki said expansively and proudly.  
  
Yvonne followed Nikki through the door to the club where women were starting to drift in and she couldn't get over the fact that this was a place where women together was perfectly natural. The monumental row she had with Lauren was something she would not lightly forget. Neither was the way that these women must have worked out their identities in the same way that she and Karen were doing. 


	79. Part Seventy Nine

Part Seventy Nine   
  
Once Yvonne had left, Nikki retreated to her office, supposedly to work on the books, but in reality to mull over what Yvonne had asked her to do. Could she persuade Helen to stand as a witness, should she even try. They were settled, Helen and her in their new life, Nikki with the club and Helen with her psychology patients. What right did Nikki or anyone else have to upset the apple cart so completely. Nikki was well aware that Helen hadn't entirely dealt with or moved on from what had happened with Fenner, Karen and everything to do with Larkhall. But Nikki sure as hell knew that going back in to that world was not the way forward, for either of them. But Nikki simply couldn't ignore what had happened to Karen. No matter how much Karen had been wrong to dismiss Helen's persistent warnings about Fenner, she didn't deserve to have been raped. Nikki knew none of the details, because Yvonne hadn't voiced them, but Nikki hadn't either needed or wanted her too. Fenner was Fenner, and if someone said they'd been raped by him, then it must be true. Eventually, she abandoned her computer and walked out to the bar and told the women working there that she was going home early tonight and only to ring her if it was urgent.   
  
when she walked in to their flat, Helen was in the kitchen pouring herself a glass of wine.   
  
"Nikki," She called, "Is that you?"   
  
"No one else," Said Nikki, walking in to the kitchen and giving Helen a kiss.   
  
"You're home early. Do you want some of this?" Helen asked, holding up the bottle.   
  
"Please," Replied Nikki, thinking that she'd need some Dutch courage for this one. When they were ensconced on the sofa, Helen said,   
  
"So, to what do I owe the unexpected pleasure of having you home at this time?" Nikki reached for the cigarette packet, a habit that she'd never abandoned since her Larkhall days.   
  
"I had a visit from Yvonne today."   
  
"Oh?" Said Helen, knowing that there must be a lot more to it than this. "How is she?"   
  
"She's okay. Do you remember about a week ago when I told you she was seeing Karen Betts?"   
  
"Of course I do and I didn't believe a word of it. There was never a pair of women more in to men than those two."   
  
"Well, it's true. Believe it or not, but yes, they are. It's in its early days, but Yvonne seems happy."   
  
"Nikki, why are you telling me this?"   
  
"She came to tell me that Karen is in the process of putting a case together against Fenner, for rape."   
  
"What, you mean Fenner raped Karen?"   
  
"Yeah, and she's got herself a hot shot barrister and they're preparing to take him to court."   
  
"No way, Nikki."   
  
"What?"   
  
"Whatever they want from me, the answer's no."   
  
"You don't know what I was about to say."   
  
"don't give me that, Nikki. Karen wants me to stand as a witness because of what Fenner did to me, and after all the bullshit I had from her. No way!"   
  
"I'm not trying to persuade you either way," Said Nikki, trying to remain calm in the face of Helen's fury.   
  
"Nikki, that is exactly what you're doing by even bringing this up."   
  
"Listen," Said Nikki plicatingly. "I know you're still furious with Karen for not taking any notice of the things you said about Fenner, and in your place, so would I be. But she didn't deserve what he did to her, the same as you didn't."   
  
"I know," Said Helen, sounding utterly defeated. "But I can't go back to all that, Nikki. I just can't do it."   
  
"If it makes you feel any better, I don't think it was Karen who wanted to involve you. For what it's worth, I don't think she even knows Yvonne came to see me. It's Karen's barrister who wants to talk to you, about everything you know about Fenner, not just about what happened to you. Let's face it, you were around for most of his serious blunders."   
  
"Tell me about it. Rachel Hicks, Shell Dockley's beating, the stabbing, the escape, you bloody name it."   
  
"As far as I know, this Barrister, Jo Mills I think she's called, just wants to talk to you. No pressure whatsoever, just a chat."   
  
"You don't seriously believe that?" Said Helen in disgust. "That's how these people start, no pressure, just a chat, and the next thing you know you're entering a witness protection program because of the dirt you've got on some bloody no mark like Fenner." Nikki laughed affectionately.   
  
"They're not all that bad. You're forgetting that one of their ilk got me out on appeal," She said turning serious again.   
  
"I doubt even a QC could put Fenner away."   
  
"This one is by all accounts. After Yvonne left, I did an internet search on her. If anyone can give Fenner what he deserves, it's her."   
  
"Nikki, I really don't know about this. Yes, I want Fenner to rot for what he did to me and everyone else over the years, I just don't know if I can be part of that. Jesus, I even changed my bloody name to get away from all that."   
  
"yeah, Yvonne said they'd had some trouble finding you. I think that's why she came to me."   
  
"did she know about us when you were still in prison?"   
  
"We never discussed it, but she's not stupid."   
  
"I really don't want to have to see him again, not even across a courtroom."   
  
"That's what's really scaring you, isn't it."   
  
"Yeah. I have enough nightmares about him already, without that."   
  
"You don't know that you'd even have to appear in court. For now, Jo Mills simply wants to talk to you because of everything you know, not least because of the Virginia O'kane stuff."   
  
"god, I'd almost forgotten about that. A jury would crucify him if they knew about that."   
  
"Precisely. So, will you at least talk to her, see what she has to say?" Helen poured herself another glass of wine and helped herself to one of Nikki's cigarettes.   
  
"Okay," She said after taking a long drag. "I'll talk to her, but no promises."   
  
A while later, when Helen went for a long soak in the bath, Nikki called Yvonne.   
  
"You bloody owe me one for this," Said Nikki, half joking, half serious. "That is the hardest thing I swear I've ever had to do."   
  
"What did she say?"   
  
"Helen will talk to Jo, but absolutely no promises. You've got to make that clear. It's taken all I've got to get her to do this much, and I don't think your gorgeous QC's got a cat in hell's chance of getting Helen in to court, but she will fill her in on as many of Fenner's misdeeds as possible."   
  
"First, you're an angel, and second, how do you know Jo's gorgeous?" Nikki laughed.   
  
"After you left, I did a search on her. There was a picture of her, very nice if you're free and single."   
  
"And straight," put in Yvonne, "She only indulges in men."   
  
"That's what I'd have said about you a couple of years ago."   
  
"I know, crazy, isn't it. Let's just hope she can do to Fenner what she did to Snowball and Ritchie."   
  
"Was it her who prosecuted Ritchie?"   
  
"Yeah, bloody fine job she did of it as well. Though, with the evidence they had stacked against them, a chimpanzee could have probably still sent them down, just not with as much style." All this was said in the half wistful, half abrasive tone that Nikki knew hid so much regret.   
  
"By the sounds of it," Said Nikki quietly, "You did everything you could for Ritchie."   
  
"Nikki, please don't even think of going there. Karen's the one I've got to concentrate on now."   
  
"Well, tell her from me she's a very lucky woman," Said Nikki fondly.   
  
"Oh, I don't know about that," Said Yvonne with a deprecating smile in her voice.   
  
"Yes," Said Nikki grinning, "She got to initiate you and I didn't. All I can say is, she must be special."   
  
"You daft cow," Said Yvonne beginning to laugh, "But yeah, she is special, very special. Maybe even a you and Helen kind of special."   
  
"Jesus," Said Nikki, "I just hope you don't have half the problems we did at the beginning."   
  
"You're happy now though, aren't you?"   
  
"Oh, yeah, but it was hard at first, incredibly hard."   
  
"You see, this is why I've got to fight all I can for her. She still has to work with Fenner day in day out, and it means she can't move on from what he did to her."   
  
"She's lucky to have you, just don't let her forget that."   
  
After speaking to Nikki, Yvonne phoned Jo.   
  
"I've got you the goods," She said as a way of opening the conversation.   
  
"Do you say that to everyone you do slightly dodgy deals for?" Asked Jo, smiling broadly.   
  
"yeah, sorry," Said Yvonne beginning to laugh, "Force of habit." Then, turning serious, she said, "I have found Helen Stewart and she will talk to you."   
  
"Marvelous, I thought you'd find her."   
  
"No one, not even Fenner on a good day, could hide from me."   
  
"so why couldn't she be traced via normal means?"   
  
"Probably because she's changed her name, to Helen Wade. Her girlfriend is an old mate of mine, someone you may have heard of, Nikki Wade?"   
  
"You mean, The Nikki Wade?" Said Jo in astonishment.   
  
"The very same. Now, there's just one other thing. You need to tread extremely carefully with Helen. There's still clearly a lot of resentment there for Karen's total ignorance of Fenner's true nature. Helen will talk to you, but at this stage, you've got no chance of getting her near a courtroom. Just, treat her with kid gloves, or she might do another disappearing act."   
  
"Okay, unlike George, I know how to be gentle with witnesses."   
  
"Whatever happens with Helen, I really think you ought to tell Karen about this. She isn't going to be amused with me for keeping it from her as it is, but I think she deserves to know."   
  
"Point taken. Thank you for doing this."   
  
"Any time. I just hope it was worth it." 


	80. Part Eighty

Part Eighty   
  
Jo feverishly stabbed at the dial as she pressed the numbers which would link her to Helen. She drummed her fingers on the telephone table as the audible metronome of the dialling tone drove her frantic to get through to Helen.   
  
"Hi, neither Helen nor Nikki are in, if you want to leave a message for either one of us, speak clearly and leave your message after the pips. If it's urgent can you phone up on………" a friendly automated voice spoke with a pronounced Scottish accent. Despite this, it wound Jo up as the human being who could listen and respond was not there, only this shadowed response.  
  
"Hi, it's Helen Wade here," the real human voice cut in with that fractional change of intonation to the real human voice.  
  
"Helen, my name is Jo Mills. I am the barrister representing Karen Betts. I take it that you already know that I am asking you to tell me what you know and, if you are agreeable, to give evidence in court."  
  
"Yes, my partner Nikki did mention some such matter to me. It is perhaps as well that I am talking to you direct instead of talking via a go between. You had better tell me exactly what you are after and just why you want to involve me in the matter," Helen replied in a precise, chilly, far from reassuring tone of voice.  
  
They make these Wing Governors tough, winced Jo. I would far rather go three rounds with George in any court case you care to name.  
  
"I was the prosecuting barrister in the Atkins Pilkinton case which you may have read about. In the course of the case, it came out that a key witness, Karen Betts who I understand that you know……."  
  
"Yes, I knew her only too well," Helen's grim anger filled voice cut in and the past tense forcibly consigned her to an unwanted part of her past life.  
  
"………had been raped by one of the other witnesses in the trial, Mr Fenner. It's a long story but when Karen Betts gave her evidence the defense hauled her over the coals for her brief involvement with Mr Atkins whose mother, Yvonne Atkins you know."  
  
"…………not exactly the best move in her life," Helen replied dismissively.  
  
"From talking to Karen I know that she bitterly regretted her involvement with Mr Atkins as much as anyone when she found out that she was used for the purposes of the two people who were later put in the dock. What came to light is that her ill judged decision to involve herself with Mr Atkins stemmed directly from her traumatic experience at the hands of Mr Fenner, another man with whom she had a relationship and who totally deceived her. She feels now that he should be put in the dock as a serial abuser of women who will get worse the longer he is allowed to get away with it. I know that you have every reason not to get involved because of what I understand was a very painful period in your life but I am asking you, at the very least, to tell me what you know about Mr Fenner's crimes. You were at the centre of all the investigations and you have the most authority. There is no one who knows more from that side than you. Please, Helen, I am asking you nicely."   
  
There was a long silence where Jo could hear her own breathing and the matter hung in the balance. Helen felt so intensely that there is a world of difference in watching an angst ridden TV programme and actually living it and this woman was a well meaning stranger to all that had happened. Good motives are not enough, she thought bitterly. A part of her mind wanted to slam the door shut on this woman and the locked up feelings of hurt and pain which were threatening to escape as they talked. The back of Helen's mind secretly admitted how persuasive she was in talking in their shared language of intelligence and incisive reason.   
  
"Go on, I'm listening," Helen replied in a more guarded tone.  
  
"We ought to talk about what it is that divides you from Karen Betts. What sort of relationship did you have with her?"  
  
A sudden onrush of memories flooded into the present of the fresh faced respectful friendly Prison Officer with a pleasant smile who was one of the few like minded liberals like herself. How grotesque was her bitter farewell to Karen that she was 'sick and tired' at explaining to an uncomprehending and hostile Karen that Fenner was a 'misogynist bastard'.   
  
"I liked her at the beginning ….she didn't like Jim Fenner any more than I did, or so I thought," Helen replied in halting tones where her anger and hurt broke through the hard veneer. "She had been with me when I interviewed Shell Dockley when she came in ,all bruised and battered by Fenner. She said that he did it when he had accused her of making poison pen phone calls to his wife. I even had a drink with her when I warned her what sort of a devious bastard he was and to watch him. I thought she understood but by some process that I couldn't keep track of she ended up in a relationship with him. I got angry with her for being so blind when she took his side in any row I had with him. I never really wanted an argument with her but she was the one who forced it all the time. If she had stuck with me and kept away from that bastard, we could have got rid of him. I blame her for what happened when she should have known better. A part of me thinks that she got everything that was coming to her."  
  
"And the other half, Helen?" Jo asked softly.  
  
"I don't know," Helen confessed in bewilderment, her voice slow, feeling its way in contrast to the earlier steely certainties. "Perhaps I don't want to know as it all happened a long time ago and I want to keep it that way."  
  
"Perhaps she isn't the Karen Betts that you know. For a start, she's in a relationship with Yvonne Atkins."  
  
"Nikki told me that one," And Jo heard a faint shadow of a laugh down the phone. "All right, I'll tell you what you want to know but don't think for one moment that I'm going soft on her or you. Let me make that totally clear." Helen's Scottish accent broadened as her voice ended on a forceful and confident tone.  
  
"Let's start from the beginning. Can you tell me your impressions of him, what makes him tick," Jo enquired.  
  
"There was something about Jim Fenner that rang loud warning bells in me from the very start, the way he'd smile to your face and stab you in the back . He isn't an ordinary crude liar as he'll mix in truth to suit his purposes and he'll run rings round you if you let him. Knowledge is power and he made it an art form to manipulate that for his selfish purposes and to set people against each other, like…..he did with Karen and myself now I come to think of it.He also had it in for me as a young female graduate in authority over him. You may have come across the kind of man who feels that strong women are a threat.That is Jim Fenner to a T.When I first came to G Wing as an inexperienced Wing Governor I didn't know the half of what went on. I found out the hard way."  
  
The harshness in Helen's voice stood out a mile to Jo and it struck an immediate chord with her when she remembered her early days as a practising barrister. She was made to feel an unwelcome intruder into the very mannered Old Etonian boys club who had their own secretly coded conversations. They saw her that in the very act in assuming their own uniform of wig and gown that it threatened their masculinity. Times had changed in her own formerly male dominated profession ,thought Jo, but Helen was not so lucky.   
  
"That is very helpful, Helen, comparing him to what I've seen of him as a witness in court. Do you want to talk about Rachel Hicks first, or Shell Dockley? It's your choice," Jo astutely asked Helen   
  
"There was something creepy about the way he was with the prisoners, his 'fan club' as Nikki told me a long long time ago. You work at a prison and after a while, you develop feelers for what is going on or else something will go on under your nose and you'll never know it. I could tell that there was obviously something between Shell Dockley and Fenner but there was nothing you could ever pin on her as a young prison officer told me once. Thinking back on it, she got protection from him as G Wing's most dangerous bully in return for sex," Helen's reflective, slow paced voice curled its way down the phone line into Jo's very sharp memory.   
  
"There was always something remote and withdrawn and waiflike about a young single mother called Rachel Hicks. Before she committed suicide, she trashed her cell which was totally out of character. Unfortunately her personal officer hadn't seen much of her but Fenner had 'taken an interest in her.'" Helen spoke the last italicised words with real sarcasm and bitterness. "I interviewed her myself and there was something about her that I could not put my finger on, apart from Fenner's very convincing explanation as he just happened to pop in that her child had just been taken into care. Shell Dockley had got wind of Rachel and had got jealous. With the help of her sidekick, Denny Blood who shared the four bed cell with Rachel Hicks ,they bullied her till she couldn't take any more."   
  
Helen's voice slowed down as she got to the end of the story which recalled her own feelings of guilt that such a thing had happened while she was in her charge.  
  
"I investigated the matter of her suicide myself to find out why , in a four bed cell of all places, she had hanged herself. It was Denny Blood, Shell's sidekick who first told me about Fenner, Dockley and Rachel Hicks as I've told you but her position was compromised. My suspicions became certainties when another prisoner with no axe to grind also tipped me off. It wasn't till Fenner beat up Shell Dockley and she came to me and Karen that I got the full truth from her that the man had been screwing both of them and, of course, Fenner had never told me one word of all this. I went straight to Mr Stubberfield, the Governing Governor who was thick as thieves with Fenner and he was going to believe all that crap that Shell Dockley had been 'knocking her head on the floor'. I forced him to suspend Fenner while an investigation took place. He made it quite clear that this enquiry was going to be a whitewash job to sweep everything under the carpet and I resigned on the spot."  
  
"How did you get back to working at Larkhall and why? I thought you would have had enough of the place?" Jo asked out of interest.  
  
"I was unemployed for a while and eventually came across a Home Office research job working for Area Management into why this country has such a high proportion of women lifers. That involved me spending occasional time at Larkhall to begin with and then I got more involved there with my responsibility for the lifers on the Home Office programme."  
  
"It must have been tough to go back there."  
  
"It happens," Helen replied far too casually for Jo's liking. "I had my duty to do anyway," she finished in Jo's own words. She wasn't going to talk about the background of her relationship with Nikki to a perfect stranger especially the way her growing desires had pulled the opposite way from the clear knowledge that she was breaking the biggest rule in her book of professionalism.  
  
"I was going to ask you about the time Shell Dockley stabbed Fenner. Before we get on to that, can you think of anything relevant that happened before then."   
  
Helen's mind was working freely. Somehow the fear of even talking about her days at Larkhall was dissipating and talking to an intelligent stranger was paradoxically easier.There wasn't any emotional involvement from that person being too closely connected to the events.  
  
"Apart from crossing swords with Fenner on my first day, I can't think of anything significant. I was away from Larkhall that night so the first I knew was a phone call from Karen saying that there was an emergency on and they needed everyone.I tried to gently talk Shell Dockley into giving up the broken bottle that she was threatening Fenner with and to give herself up voluntarily. Just at the point when I was succeeding, Karen Betts stuck her oar in and had the door broken down and Shell Dockley dragged out screaming. I can't remember much else as I was called away to deal with a disturbance on the wing. Karen was there to deal with the aftermath," Helen finished shortly.   
  
"Can you tell me about what you found out in your investigation."  
  
"That night, there was a wedding celebration for one of the prison officers and some of the prisoners were there serving drinks for the guests, I know, not the decision I would have made, especially allowing Shell Dockley to be there. I found out that she had smuggled a broken bottle from out of the party and that Fenner had escorted her back to her cell. I found out from Yvonne Atkins that she had wound her up by saying that Fenner and Karen Betts were sleeping together. While I suspected Fenner's motives in going back with her to her cell, I couldn't conclude otherwise that Shell had fully intended in advance to stab Fenner and had to let him off the hook.I interviewed Shell herself and she gave me a cock and bull yarn about why she had the broken bottle".  
  
"What's your opinion of Shell Dockley? The relationships between you and the two of them are far from clear to me."  
  
Helen silently nodded to herself in appreciation at the very good question.  
  
"Shell Dockley ended up in prison for torturing and killing another woman she was jealous of," Helen said flatly to Jo's horror. "She was as adept a liar as Fenner and kept grudges. She got a kick out of inflicting cruelties. I was never close to her but Karen may know more of her background than I do. She and Nikki hated each other's guts as did Nikki and Fenner. When I came to Larkhall, Shell Dockley was in a favoured position thanks to Fenner and the Old boys network, and Nikki was the outcast. I incurred Shell Dockley's emnity as I broke up Fenner's cosy arrangement and ensured Nikki was treated fairly. However, when Dockley caused trouble for Fenner, they fell out and Dockley came to me for help. I felt genuinely sorry for her and was horrified at the sight of her injuries . I never trusted her any more than Nikki did. Have I made things clear, Jo?" Helen said, having violently compressed a whole complexity of cross cutting allegiances and strong emotions into a few short sentences.  
  
Nikki smiled to herself in the background when she heard this as she knew Helen would be better off if she kept away.  
  
"Perfectly, Helen. I am grateful for you explaining matters so lucidly." Jo meant this as she had experience of clients stories meandering all over the place, glossing over important details while introducing all sorts of irrelevancies.If she could persuade her to stand up in court, she had that assured grip of facts and real strength of personality that was obvious even on the phone. What she would be like in person would be doubly powerful and convincing.  
  
"I have a question to ask which involves you personally. I have had sight of a report that you wrote of the time when Fenner assaulted you. Is there anything you wish to add to it?" The sensitive way that Jo gently forewarned Helen gave her a chance to mentally prepare herself.  
  
"I popped into the PO's room on a deserted evening only to pick up a file and had another verbal run in with him the same as I had done a week or so previously.Of all the evil things I had seen Fenner do or heard that he'd done, I never thought that it could happen to me. In the end, I broke away and ran for it before he could do me any more harm. They say," and Jo heard Helen audibly struggling for control to reduce everything down to a general dispassionate analysis, "that a lot of women who are sexually assaulted know the man responsible. It's not done as much as one might think by some stranger down a dark alley. Still, I was lucky, he only put his hand between my legs, nothing like what he did to Karen from what I've heard."   
  
Helen finished on a note that horribly understated her feelings of total horror and the image flashbacks.  
  
"Do you want to have a break, Helen?" Jo asked.  
  
"Let's carry on. I want to get everything out into the open," She said with a determined emphasis which Jo found had a peculiar edge to it. "Do you want to hear my thoughts on what really happened when Shell Dockley escaped from Larkhall?"  
  
"Go ahead," Jo said politely.It took the edge off the situation if Helen started to take control and was a good omen for her possibly agreeing to testify as a witness. Things were looking up after a tricky start and it looked as if Helen was psyching herself up to decide to testify in court after all.  
  
"Nikki has helped me to piece together a few things about my time at Larkhall which I didn't understand. Shell Dockley would make all sort of veiled threats against him to undermine him when he came back on duty after many weeks sick leave . Anyway, soon after the sexual assault, a TV company came to Larkhall to make a documentary and Stubberfield, that fool of a man, saw it as a way to make cheap publicity totally blind to the way that the whole thing could blow up in our face. Shell Dockley and two others sneaked out in the middle of the mayhem you might expect in a church service where the cameras were on the congregation. Very conveniently, Shell Dockley had left under her bed a bar of soap as a mould so a spare key could be cut of the door at the back of the chapel. They unlocked this and stole the TV company's van. Still more conveniently, she had left a supposed diary which appeared to suggest that the lifer's group that I ran which she was part of was badly supervised."  
  
"In what way was the diary suspect evidence?" Jo enquired.  
  
"The opening line supposedly six weeks before her breakout said 'I want to escape.' Now I was very closely involved with the lifers in the group and they were all encouraged to keep a diary so that their thoughts and feelings could be directed openly and to focus their feelings towards a more constructive use of their time and to maximise their potential. Shell Dockley may have many gifts but literary efforts were not amongst them in keeping diaries. She was a trouble maker in all the group meetings.The whole thing was too suspect for words as I told the investigators from Area that an up to date diary suddenly appeared . Just how they got hold of the keys to the van I don't know but I can see to whose interest it was for her to escape and for both of them to use the incident to damage my reputation. I told them that the key that was cut to aid their escape would be done on the outside and by no stretch of imagination would the bar of soap be brought back into Larkhall except to incriminate me To whose advantage is the obvious question and it clearly points to Shell Dockley and Fenner."  
  
To Jo, Helen was on a roll as she talked and her rapid incisive command of the facts and her ability to articulate them fluently showed her that the Home Office's gain as a Wing Governor was the legal profession's loss as a potentially fine barrister. Jo heard Helen take a swallow of liquid as, unknown to her, Nikki had silently passed her a glass of water as Helen's voice was being strained by all her talking.  
  
"The last link in the chain is the O'Kane brothels. Virginia O'Kane, an owner of a chain of brothels had been locked up and it was Yvonne Atkins, who knows pretty well everything that went on at Larkhall, who tipped me off that Fenner was running the brothels on the side and taking a cut out of the takings. This was my chance to see the back of Fenner and I staked out the main brothel for night after night till I was dropping with fatigue. Yvonne's daughter found out that he was passing himself off as John Farmer…."  
  
"He has to be the same person, Helen. What a transparent disguise," exclaimed Jo.  
  
"……….suspecting something is one thing but proving it is quite another matter as you should know," And that shrewd thrust taught Jo that Helen was definitely in the wrong business as a psychologist or otherwise, had an alternative career. "It wasn't till I found out when and where he was going to pick up the takings and I confronted him one dark night when he was coming out of the massage parlour," Helen exclaimed. "He was actually trying to tell me that he had been there as a punter. That was a first that he had ever admitted anything along that line. I pushed the matter and he threatened me and had me up against a wall. I took the risk of a lifetime and conned him into thinking that I had an accomplice with a handy long range camera and he caved in. The morning after, I confronted him and insisted on his written resignation."  
  
"That's incredible what you've told me, Helen. You've told me that you have direct evidence of him violently assaulting women, your own experience that matches what has also happened to Karen Betts, that he has a record of sexually exploiting women in his charge and that he is totally sleasy and corrupt.You would make a great witness in court both in what you know and in your grasp of the facts."  
  
"And that is what I'm not about to become. I'm sorry Jo, I accept entirely what you say and you almost sound like the way I used to talk a few years ago but I'm not going into the witness box. I've told you what I know and that is as far as I'm prepared to go."  
  
There was a deep silence that lasted far longer than the wall clock where Jo was, ticked out the time. The story had built up from an uncertain start, had gathered pace and rhythm and had built up to a crescendo to be capped by the inevitable conclusion. Except that the story had stopped dead. Jo could hear her own breathing while Helen had hardened her heart as she had known in advance that she must. Then one question popped out of nowhere in Jo's mind and it took words.  
  
"Why did you leave Larkhall?"  
  
Jo could almost feel the tension in Helen while Nikki came silently behind her and gently placed her hands on Helen's tense shoulders. Helen wrestled with the dilemma to tell and the huge risk she was taking but as Nikki said nothing, Helen plucked up the courage to say.  
  
"If I tell you, Jo, I must advise you that I had broken the law."  
  
"Don't worry, Helen. I don't work for the prison service and, after all I have heard, perhaps I am lucky in my career in whom I work with."  
  
Helen was oblivious of the irony in Jo's words when she recalled the slippery Sir Ian Rochester and Lawrence James.   
  
"All right. It's simple. Fenner found out that I had been having a relationship with Nikki when she was a prisoner in my charge, that she had broken out to land herself on my doorstep the night that Fenner was stabbed and I had slept with her. It's funny that expression," and Helen's laugh was artificial to cover up the tension she felt, "the one thing Nikki and I did not do was sleep, not after all those months that this had been denied to us. I smuggled Nikki back to Larkhall and went on to help get Dockley out of her cell. Fenner remembers all this. If I testify against him, that will be brought up. I dare not take that risk and I insist that you respect our feelings on the matter. One way or another, Fenner must be brought to account but I can't help you out this way."  
  
Jo felt deflated that the chance of a lifetime to build up her case had tantalisingly slipped out of reach. She couldn't blame her but it was no consolation. Helen in contrast, felt that she had been delicately edged towards a cliff's edge that only she could see and she had thrown herself back from going over the edge. She felt sweaty, relieved that she had done the right thing but still felt a trace of that feeling of guilt that she wasn't the Helen Stewart who would have gone into battle. She had moved on.   
  
"You aren't angry with me Jo?" Helen asked. Somehow it was important that she was well thought of by this barrister whose face she didn't even know.  
  
"How can I be, Helen," Jo reassured her with all the sincerity she could summon up. "You deserve a lifetime of contentment with Nikki."  
  
And she meant that and hoped that someday she could achieve a similar peace of mind in her life. 


	81. Part Eighty One

Part Eighty One   
  
As Jo drove towards Larkhall after her phone call with Helen, she couldn't believe she'd made such an error of judgment. She really had thought that she could persuade Helen to stand as a witness. But she was forced to admit that Helen's reasons for not appearing were faultless. Apart from what Shell Dockley could possibly tell them, Jo had a fairly complete picture of Fenner's dealings with women since Helen's arrival, but without Helen's testimony in front of a jury, all this information would mean nothing. The CPS wouldn't touch this case without Helen Stewart's back up and they'd have reservations about it even then. So, the only course of action left to Jo, was to suggest to Karen that she form a civil case against area management for not ever having Fenner thoroughly investigated when there was so much corroborating evidence to the fact that he was at the very least a corrupt prison officer. Jo would suggest to Karen that she pass on the case to George, one of the most successful and perhaps more importantly one of the most ruthless civil barristers she knew. George would dig and cajole and irritate as much as it took to get area management to admit their mistake. If a civil case were successful, this would provide the backing for a criminal case against Fenner himself without Helen Stewart having to give evidence.   
  
Karen was sitting at her computer, wrestling with her never-ending battle between the needs of her wing and the available resources, and was surprised when her secretary informed her that a Jo Mills was at the gate to see her. Deciding to go and fetch Jo herself, Karen abandoned her budgets all too easily and walked down to the gate lodge. Ken was eyeing Jo up and down, clearly impressed at this attractive woman before him. As Karen let herself through the final gate, Ken was saying,   
  
"You've probably prosecuted some of the women we've got in here."   
  
"Jo," Karen said, preventing Jo from having to answer Ken's assumption. "This is a nice surprise."   
  
"I hope you think so when you hear what I've got to tell you."   
  
"I'll need your mobile phone before you go anywhere, Miss," Put in Ken. "New regulations, no one's allowed to take a mobile inside the prison."   
  
"That won't be necessary, Ken," Replied Karen, "Mrs. Mills won't be having any contact with any inmates." As Jo followed Karen through the endless maze of dull corridors and locked gates, she briefly wondered how Karen could work somewhere so miserably decorated day after day.   
  
Once they were seated in her office and Karen had asked her secretary to get them some coffee, she asked,   
  
"So, to what do I owe the pleasure?"   
  
"I'm not sure you'll think it such a pleasure, I've spoken to Helen Stewart." Karen had been in the process of lighting a cigarette, but held the lighter poised half way to her mouth as if time had stopped. Finally lighting the cigarette, she said,   
  
"First, how did you find her?"   
  
"I didn't," Replied Jo, feeling slightly uncomfortable at having involved Yvonne in this. "Yvonne tracked her down for me."   
  
"That figures," Said Karen taking a drag. "Area management couldn't find hide nor hair of her. I'm guessing you asked Yvonne to find her because Yvonne has access to slightly dubious, slightly illegal means of finding people."   
  
"Yes. I asked her not to tell you for the moment, because I didn't want to get your hopes up."   
  
"Little chance of that," Said Karen drily. "There wasn't ever any hope of Helen agreeing to give evidence. I'm assuming she said no?"   
  
"She did, though she was able to fill in a few gaps."   
  
"So, why couldn't we find her?"   
  
"She's changed her name. She now calls herself Helen Wade." The rapid succession of puzzlement, amazement and dawning realisation over Karen's face was almost comical.   
  
"Wade as in Nikki Wade?"   
  
"What makes you say that?" Karen rolled her eyes at Jo.   
  
"Why is it that barristers always insist on answering questions with questions."   
  
"I believe it comes with the territory. If you think I'm bad, try John. He always manages to make me tie myself in knots with my arguments. But yes, Wade as in Nikki Wade." Karen suddenly stared at Jo, her eyes growing wide in delayed shock.   
  
"Not long after Helen left, Fenner told me that he'd found evidence of Nikki's having escaped to see Helen on the night he was stabbed. At the time, I didn't believe him. I assumed it was yet another of his lies."   
  
"Well, it appears that this was the one time he was telling you the truth," Said Jo quietly.   
  
"Are you serious?" Asked Karen, equally quietly.   
  
"Perfectly. The only reason Helen told me this was because I don't have a vested interest in informing the powers that be that she aided and abetted an escaped criminal, and that Nikki Wade absconded."   
  
"Well, quite. It'd be pretty fruitless doing anything of the kind. Jesus, it's amazing the things that can go on under your very nose."   
  
"You never once had any idea?"   
  
"I always knew there was something different about those two, but it never occurred to me they were lovers. I remember, not long after Helen came back, we had a death on the wing and the whole prison was on lock down. I was doing an ordinary check on the inmates, and I found Helen talking to Nikki in her cell. I couldn't explain the feeling I had, just that I'd walked in on something not meant for me. I wonder if that's why she came back in the first place."   
  
"Possibly. There's something else that she was able to tell me about. Did Yvonne ever tell you about Fenner's having dealings with another inmate, Virginia O'Kane?"   
  
"Yes, she did, a few days before giving me the biggest bruise I've ever had."   
  
"Yes, she told me about that. How much notice did you take of this assertion at the time?"   
  
"Considering that it was followed up by an escape attempt, not much. But I did go through Fenner's bank statements, which didn't yield anything. But I have no doubt that it's true. What did Helen know about that?"   
  
"It was Helen who Yvonne took her original suspicions too. Helen caught Fenner coming out of one of O'Kane's brothels, and attempted to blackmail him in to resigning, which is when he went on the hunt for evidence against her."   
  
"Christ," Said Karen in awe, "She's got more guts than me."   
  
"If you want an honest opinion," Said Jo, "I think you're as brave as each other. In talking at length to both of you, I know that the legal profession lost two potentially brilliant barristers when you decided to work for the prison service. However, what you need to realise, is that no legal mind in the CPS is going to touch this case as it currently stands. I've talked to them at length, and as I've worked for them for years, they usually take my recommendation on face value. But they won't allow me to go ahead with a prosecution."   
  
"Is that because of Helen's refusal to give evidence?" Karen didn't sound angry, just resigned.   
  
"Partly, but there is still far too much circumstantial evidence. I would like to suggest an alternative course of action."   
  
"What, have him finished off down some dark alley?" Jo grinned.   
  
"I would prefer not to have to defend you on a charge of murder. The other option you have, is to form a civil case against area management for not ever having had Fenner investigated thoroughly. Whilst we might not have enough evidence to construct a criminal case, there is enough to force area management followed by the police, to investigate his goings on here properly. If a civil case were to produce a satisfactory result, this would provide the backing necessary for a future criminal case."   
  
"Well, at least all avenues aren't closed."   
  
"Not in the slightest. It's simply going to take longer, that's all. Now, as civil work is not my speciality, I would like to pass your case temporarily on to someone else. You remember that when we began work on this case, I asked you for permission to use another barrister as a sounding board? Well, I talked to George Channing. Civil work is her speciality, and whilst she might have made something of a shambles of the Merriman/Atkins case, I can say with total certainty that she won't do the same with this case. I will still be on the sidelines, ready to pick up the reins for the criminal prosecution, but George really does know what she's doing in prosecuting the establishment."   
  
"Okay, if you think that's the only way Fenner's ever going to get what's coming to him."   
  
"As the case stands, I can't do any more with it at the moment. We need the backing of a successful civil case against area management to get this anywhere near a courtroom."   
  
"Have you asked George if she'll do it?"   
  
"No, not yet, but she's seen just about everything there is to see on this case, and I'm fairly sure she won't say no. Incidentally, she was my source for all the information I managed to find on Fenner. Do you remember a Mrs. Warner, who investigated the escape of Shell Dockley and Denny Blood? Well, she was once one of George's clients and owed George a favour. She repaid her professional debt by giving George the area management files on as many of my witnesses as possible during the Merriman/Atkins trial."   
  
"Jesus," Said Karen with a broad smile, "You barristers are more devious than I already thought you were."   
  
"I think it's part of having to be always one step ahead of the opposition."   
  
"How was Helen when you spoke to her?"   
  
"Angry," Replied Jo succinctly. "Despite changing her name and doing a different job, she hasn't even begun to move on from what Fenner did to her."   
  
"I know you thought it was worth it," Said Karen quietly, "but I really wouldn't have suggested contacting Helen. For me, the idea of standing up in court and giving evidence against him is a foregone conclusion, because I see him and have to talk to him every day of my working life. But for Helen, it's different. She's no longer used to having that kind of contact with him, and I suspect that simply being in the same room as him would frighten the living daylights out of her, and after the way I treated her, I haven't got any right to expect her to put herself through that."   
  
"I know, and I know I should have discussed it with you first."   
  
"Don't worry. Anything was probably worth a try with this one."   
  
A while later as Karen was walking back downstairs with Jo, they were accosted by Fenner.   
  
"Whose bright idea was it to put McKenzy on enhanced?" Was his abrupt enquiry.   
  
"Mine," Said Karen, stopping in her tracks and turning to face him.   
  
"Why?"   
  
"Because I thought she deserved it, what other reason is there."   
  
"But McKenzy's a nutter. Putting her up on enhanced is asking for trouble."   
  
"First," Said Karen, pinning Fenner to the spot with her iron-like resolve, "She's behaved extremely well since the trial, and second, you know better than to question me on this. Go any further with this and you'll be joining Sylvia and Di in the queue to collect your P45 one day soon. Is that clear?"   
  
"Crystal," Said Fenner icily, not willing to risk a scene in front of an onlooker. Then, he seemed to take note of exactly who was accompanying Karen. "Oh, hello," He said to Jo. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"   
  
"I assure you, Mr. Fenner," Replied Jo, just as genially, "The pleasure in meeting you again certainly isn't mine." When they finally reached the carpark, Karen said,   
  
"He's not used to being so thoroughly cut down to size."   
  
"You looked like you were doing pretty well on your own," Commented Jo. Then, as she opened her car door, she said, "I'll talk to George, and let you know."   
  
When Yvonne answered the phone a short time later, Karen simply said,   
  
"Give me Helen and Nikki's number."   
  
"Why?"   
  
"Yvonne, for once in your life, please just do it."   
  
"Are you cross with me?" Karen laughed.   
  
"I should be, but no. It says something about the pathetic workings of the establishment that we searched and searched for Helen, but you managed to track her down in a couple of days. I'm assuming you found her through Nikki?"   
  
"Yeah, she's still running the club she had before she got sent down. Has Jo been to see you then?"   
  
"Yes. Helen won't be a witness, not that I blame her, but then I wouldn't have suggested contacting her in the first place."   
  
"Do you really think talking to her is such a good idea?"   
  
"Yes. If for no other reason than that I owe her an apology or three. So, can I have their number, please?"   
  
"Fine," Said Yvonne with a smile, "But don't tell her where you got it, or Nikki'll kill me." 


	82. Part Eighty Two

Part Eighty Two   
  
Immediately after putting the phone down after her conversation with Yvonne, Karen reached inside her handbag for a cigarette. She knew she really ought to cut down her smoking but she resolved that she would delay that good resolution till the next day as she always promised she would one day. This was an emergency and so she could justify it this time.  
  
As the first trail of cigarette smoke wafted away into the room, she could hear the Scottish lilt of Helen's voice telling her that 'You're too close to the situation, Karen. You can't see it' echoing and re-echoing round in her mind as if Helen were here in the same room with her. As she heard the voice in her head, it expressed a real understanding and kindness and patience . It was her own stupidity and blindness that drove Helen to give up on her. She banished that train of thought as this was an invitation to replay the same stuck record endlessly and to never move forward in her life.   
  
She inhaled deeply and then reached for the phone. She pressed the numbers on her phone to call up Helen. She knew by gut instinct that if she gave herself too much time for reflection, she wouldn't be able to pluck up the courage to phone the one person she was most nervous of contacting.   
  
  
  
"Hi it's Helen." That well remembered voice made Karen jump a bit.   
  
"I bet you didn't expect to hear from me after all these months, Helen." Her own mellow tones took Helen by surprise. There was an edgy nervous humour in it that made Helen count to five before thinking of instinctively blasting off at Karen.  
  
"Hmm, you've certainly got that one right." Helen's voice shifted to a very wary neutral tone of voice. "You wouldn't be thinking by any chance of getting me to change my mind at the last minute about appearing in court for you. You ought to know me better than that."  
  
"This is absolutely the last reason why I'm phoning you, Helen," Karen said with total bluntness and sincerity. "I've got a lot of apologising to do to you and if I had a choice, I would sooner do it to your face. As I know you would need a lot of persuading to agree to see me because of the lousy way I've treated you in the past, the next best way is over the phone. For a start, I wanted to apologise for my barrister Jo Mills trying to get you to agree to be a witness without my knowledge when if I had been asked, I would have said that there was not a cat's chance in hell of you doing it."  
  
Helen hesitated a while before answering. Karen was certainly being utterly frank about the matter and she had to respect that.  
  
"I have to say that I was pretty angry in her phoning me up out of the blue like that and I assumed that you put her up to it. I did think that you had a hell of a nerve," Came Helen's response, her quick temper already audibly subsiding. "However," and Helen's tone of voice became softer, more reflective. "Your barrister stated her case very persuasively and is a highly intelligent woman . I had every reason to refuse to help you at all but she persuaded me to tell her as much as I know about my time at Larkhall and it wasn't so frightening once I got into it. Strangely enough, she has done me a favour in at least getting me to look back on that time with fresh eyes. I had blocked everything out of my mind but it was all still there, festering below the surface. It's strange but I work as a psychologist now and here's me, dealing with other problems and I couldn't deal with my own. I kept on having nightmares and Nikki was getting worried about me ."  
  
"I really hope you don't blame her for jumping the gun in talking to you like that. She meant well……" said Karen, eager to excuse not only herself but Jo Mills.   
  
"That's not necessarily enough, Karen," interposed Helen gently. "When I first came to Larkhall, I was aflame with burning energy to transform Larkhall with a one woman crusade and look what happened, my anti drugs crusade was a total disaster for a start."  
  
"Have you changed that much, Helen? I can imagine that your focus of your crusading has been changed to heal the mentally troubled," Karen joked nervously.  
  
"Well, I do work ridiculously long hours," Helen admitted.  
  
"You don't change, Helen.." Karen said with real warmth and affection in her voice.   
  
"What I wanted to go on and say is that Jo Mills is one of the good ones. I've been in court before as Wing Governor and I could tell the sort of barrister a mile away who is only doing it for legal aid money. She's different. She cares."   
  
"You sound like you're talking about someone else as well," Karen said softly.   
  
At that point, Jo's words about Nikki and Helen drifted back into her mind as she still tried to get her head round what Jo had told her. There were a whole set of past images that she had had of Helen when reality had existed elsewhere. The conversation drifted away into a natural silence until Karen's thoughts found their voice.  
  
"Jo told me about you and Nikki. Believe it or not, he told me exactly the same only he didn't put it as delicately. This has got to be the first time that he actually told me the truth and I didn't believe it."  
  
"I bet he was angry. No one is more self righteous than the habitual liar on the only time that he is telling the truth. That's him all over. And see if you can guess who I was having nightmares about."   
  
"Fenner," Karen said shortly.  
  
" Hey, Karen, I have never heard you call him by that name before. It was always Jim Fenner," Helen asked in a note of friendly surprise.  
  
"Times have changed, Helen. It all started from that night he raped me and I finally got myself a mind that I could call my own and not something that was taken over by that smooth lying poisonous voice and thinking his thoughts for me. Strangely enough, I heard the last words you ever said to warn me about Fenner going round and round in my head as I prepared to make a run for it. A lot has changed in my life since the last time you saw me, hopefully for the better."  
  
"No going back to a man like him, eh Karen."  
  
"Not till hell freezes over," Karen said emphatically. It was on the tip of her tongue to say 'no going back to men at all' but she was still struggling with the image of Helen as she knew her at the time she last saw her and trying to bring an image of both of them up to present. "I was at court as a witness to testify against a female prisoner called Snowball Merriman and Ritchie Atkins who, together, set a bomb off at Larkhall and Fenner was trying to blackmail me by threatening me into covering up for him about the way he'd let that cow wind him round her little finger."   
  
"The evil bastard!" Exclaimed Helen with passion.  
  
"Steady, Helen, if you carry on this way, you'll talk yourself into standing up in court for me like Joan of Arc against the defending council," Laughed Karen.  
  
"Have I really got that sort of a reputation?" Wondered Helen aloud.  
  
"Do I really have to answer that question?"   
  
"So, talking about questions, what's this I hear about you and Yvonne, eh? You're a dark horse.." Helen's friendly mocking voice teased her.  
  
"It takes one to know another, Helen," Came Karen's blunt rejoinder. "The PO's room was an endless source of gossip as to who was going to be the new man in your life after Sean. At one point, Di Barker was banging on forever about you and Dominic."  
  
Helen laughed heartily at that one.  
  
"I know that he had ideas that way. He was a nice boy but not my type. He was a good friend to me and good friends are hard to come by and you need to stick to them like glue."  
  
"I know that one, Helen," Karen replied evenly, thinking of Cassie and Roisin and, who knows in time, Lauren. "but there's nothing like having your dream lover though, the sort that you read about in the magazines or some such thing as I remember in some old pop song of my youth."  
  
"Hey, get Karen Betts coming over all romantic." Helen laughed down the phone at her. Karen's voice was layered over with irony and Helen could visualise the raised eyebrow that went with it. Despite it, she sensed that her feelings for Yvonne were very real. "I never thought that there was a romantic bone in your body."  
  
"Don't tell Yvonne that though or she'll kill me and I'll never forgive you," Karen's very decided tones mock-scolded her.  
  
"You can't tell me what to do, Karen Betts. Remember I used to be your boss."  
  
"Don't I just know that," came the snappy reply with an exaggerated sigh.  
  
"It's funny, Karen. I've been operating on the thoughts of the Karen Betts that I thought I knew…"  
  
"Yeah, with a lousy taste in men. If there was a crowd full of men, I used to pick out the one real bastard, at the very back of the room."  
  
"Well times have changed for both you and me. If I've got it right, you've got a partner who'll be there for you and will tell you the blunt truth instead of a load of bullshit. I know, because I've got Nikki," Helen said on a more serious, affectionate note. "You do understand why I can't go with you to the barricades on this one. It's not just that times have changed but it's just too dangerous for me."   
  
"I know Helen. I know that you'll be there in spirit with us all when we finally nail the bastard."   
  
"I won't promise that we'll be thinking of you all the time as we have our own future but Nikki and I will be around somewhere out there."  
  
"That's as much as I can ask of you both." 


	83. Part Eighty Three

A/N: If possible, please listen to the following two pieces of music whilst reading this chapter. First, Chopin's Nocturn in D flat major: Op.27 no.2, followed by Chopin's Nocturne in E minor: Op.72 No.1.   
  
Part Eighty Three   
  
On the Tuesday evening, George was sitting at her piano, trying to mould her slightly unco-operative hands around one of Chopin's Nocturnes. Her father had always loved hearing her play the piano and so had bought her the baby grand as a wedding present. With the odd lapse here and there, George had kept up with her playing. She used it as a form of relaxation, a way to unwind her tensely knotted brain after a day of wrestling with the finer points of various judicial Acts and the Civil Procedure Rules. She occasionally found that if she knew a piece well enough, looking at the music would be more of a hindrance than a help, her hands would know it better than she did. In more recent times, it would be her way of calming down after an argument with Neil. He would storm out to his club, and she would retreat to her piano. In playing a fairly hefty piece of Beethoven or Brahms, she could let out all the frustration that a verbal fight with Neil never alleviated. In finding the verbal expression of her real feelings on occasions frightening, her playing would allow her to release the pent up hurt or anger. In the old days when she was married to John, they would have shouted at each other long enough to tie themselves in knots with their arguments, and follow it up with some of the best love making they'd ever had. But neither of those things had ever been accomplished with Neil. He thought of arguing as pointless, simply walking away from it because he couldn't deal with any kind of confrontation, just or otherwise. As for the other, he simply couldn't satisfy her. George almost craved that furious battle of wills followed by the intense release that a good orgasm provided. They almost went hand in hand for her, the fight and the fuck, the one almost being a precursor to the other. But then Neil had taken it one step too far. He'd used on her the one thing she could never throw back at him. He'd hit her. In a moment of blind fury, which she had to admit to herself she'd driven him to, he'd used his advantage of physical strength. At the time, the physical pain and humiliation had been uppermost in her mind. But on reflection, she knew it was the fact that he'd finally found a way to break down all her defenses that had irked her. John had never once done that to her. He'd only ever fought with her on an equal level. John had been everything she'd wanted, everything she could ever have wanted. Sure, the arrival of their daughter Charlie had without a doubt started the breakdown of their marriage, mainly because George hadn't been ready for a child. But then she doubted whether or not she'd ever have been ready for the full-time responsibility of another human being. It had terrified her to realise that this little person depended on her for everything. But even when she'd totally failed at being a decent mother to Charlie, John hadn't ever raised his hand to her.   
  
On impulse, George turned to a piece she hadn't played for far too long. It began with a soft, slow build up, both her hands moving in drifting, languorous patterns. The beautiful, haunting modulations of D-flat major gradually took her hands through ever-increasing speed and crescendo. As George reached the peak of her playing, she was filled with the memory of exactly what had made this particular piece so special. She'd married John in November of 77, a few months after graduating from university. It'd been about a year later, not long after their first wedding anniversary, and they'd been lying entwined on the sofa in front of the open fire, listening to soft music and simply enjoying one another's company. John had expressed a wish to see her play the piano naked. Never one to pass up the opportunity of trying anything new, she'd complied. She could remember the way his eyes had followed the firelight as it played over her beautiful body, transforming her in to the incarnation of one of Botticelli's angels. Her hair had been long in those days, cascading down her back like a never-ending waterfall. From the gradual slope of her shoulders, to her small heavy breasts, to her extremely slender waist, his eyes had traced every inch of her. She had been looking at the music, but she could feel his eyes on her like branding irons. She'd also known that simply gazing at her wouldn't be enough for him for long. She'd been dimly aware of his drawing ever nearer, but had remained utterly absorbed in her playing as he'd gently caressed her shoulders. As his hands had begun to wander over her curves, she'd concentrated resolutely on not reacting to his touch, on playing the voluptuously resonant chords of Chopin's Nocturne in D flat major: Op.27 no.2. It was almost a test, to see how focussed she could stay, how well she could play these notes that, if she wasn't careful, could forever entangle her long, tapered fingers. As she'd reached the middle of the piece, some may even call it its climax, with the broken chord octave F-sharps marked forticimo, he'd slipped his hands under her slightly raised arms to tease the slightly darker skin that surrounded her nipples. She'd been unable to suppress a gasp as he did this, but she still kept on going, determined not to give in until the end. When she'd eventually achieved the last few lingering chords, he'd dropped light, feathery kisses over her shoulders and murmured,   
  
"This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.  
  
I said, I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof: now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine."   
  
"Why are you quoting the songs of Solomon to me?" She'd asked, her voice deepened by extreme arousal. She'd been fairly noncommittal about his suggestion that seeing her play the piano wearing nothing whatsoever would be incredibly erotic, but now she had to agree that the torture of not being able to give in to his advances until the end of the piece had been fantastic.   
  
"They could have been written about you," He replied, running his fingers through her hair and turning her face towards him.   
  
"Trust you to know the only erotic part of the bible by heart," She said fondly as he began to kiss her. They'd ended up making love on the thick rug before the open fire, their bed upstairs seeming too far away to satisfy their immediate, desperate need for each other.   
  
George smiled as this memory invaded her brain, and briefly wondered if she would ever feel that happy again. Those two years before she discovered she was pregnant had been thoroughly intoxicating. John and she could never get enough of each other, their passion hardly decreasing from the first time they'd sampled the delights of each other's bodies. It was such a shame that from that day on which she realised another human being was growing inside her, everything had changed. John had been overjoyed at the prospect of being a father, and he couldn't possibly have been more attentive or more wonderful to her. But his happiness at their creation had made her retreat in to herself. She couldn't voice her fears to him, so she kept them hidden, constantly eating away at her, only to increase a thousand fold once Charlie arrived.   
  
As Jo drove towards George's house, she couldn't stop berating herself for having made such a spectacular mistake with Karen's case. She should have known that Helen Stewart wouldn't want to get involved. After all, Karen hadn't exactly shown Helen the greatest amount of support when she'd needed it, so why should Helen feel she had to return the favour. But Helen had been their one real hope, their one firm witness apart from Karen. But it wasn't to be. Whilst clearly feeling some sympathy for Karen, Helen wanted nothing whatsoever to do with any eventual trial. That was the point, Jo thought bleakly, without Helen's testimony, she doubted whether this would ever get anywhere near a courtroom. But perhaps the gravest of all her mistakes in the last week had been not to tell Karen that she was attempting to get Helen Stewart's support. In doing this, Jo had tested Karen's trust in her, something which she knew in retrospect should never have happened. The thought that really irked her was that George had very possibly been right. When they'd talked a week ago about this case, George had warned her not to get too emotionally involved, and Jo was honest enough to admit that this was precisely what she had done. As she pulled in to George's driveway, she wondered just why she'd come here. She locked the car and walked up the steps to the front door. She was about to press the doorbell, when she clearly heard the beautifully hypnotic sound of a piano being skillfully manipulated. Assuming that George was listening to a CD, Jo jabbed the doorbell once. She got the surprise of her life when the music immediately stopped, signifying that it must have been George doing the playing. When the door opened, Jo thought that George looked slightly wistful, as if she'd been dragged from the contemplation of a fond memory.   
  
"Was that you playing the piano?" She asked, half regretting having interrupted her.   
  
"Yes, it was," Replied George, standing aside to allow Jo to enter. As they walked in to the lounge, Jo caught sight of the open piano, with an open book on the stand, the page liberally dotted with felt tip where George had altered the fingering to compensate for her small hands. Jo walked over and looked at what George had been playing.   
  
"Rather you than me," She said on noting the sincere difficulty of the piece.   
  
"Yes," George agreed, "I do tend to tie my hands in knots playing that one. Would you like a drink?"   
  
"Please. I've made a fairly hefty blunder with Karen Betts' case and need to drown my sorrows." After pouring Jo a scotch and herself a large martini, George sat on the sofa and Jo took the armchair she'd sat in last time she was here.   
  
"What did you do that is so catastrophic?"   
  
"I talked to Helen Stewart, without Karen's knowledge, and was told in no uncertain terms by both Helen and Karen once she found out, that Helen would never act as a witness and that it was pointless to ask her." Reserving any judgment until she was fully aware of the facts, George said,   
  
"Why didn't you tell her you were talking to Helen?"   
  
"I didn't want to get her hopes up. I knew I was clutching at straws, but I thought it was worth a try."   
  
"If I was Helen Stewart," Observed George, "I probably wouldn't want to get involved either. You can't really blame her." Jo was outraged.   
  
"But apart from Karen, Helen Stewart is the only reliable witness we might have had. If nothing else, surely it's her duty to help put Fenner behind bars."   
  
"How ridiculous can you get," Said George scornfully, "It isn't her duty to do anything of the sort. The decision to drag up bits of what is clearly her past, had to be her choice. After all, that's what this case is all about, choice."   
  
"It's pure vindictiveness that made Helen Stewart say no."   
  
"Well, at least this time she had the opportunity to say no. Wouldn't you be vindictive if you were in her place? Admittedly I haven't spoken to the woman myself, but after reading everything I have on this case, Helen Stewart did her damnedest to warn Karen off Fenner. By the sounds of it, she couldn't possibly have done any more, and all Karen could do was to ignore and castigate her every word on him. Yet now that Karen has had a dose of the real Fenner, she wants Helen's support as if none of that had ever happened. If I was in Helen Stewart's place, a little act of revenge might be the only thing I'd have left."   
  
"That's you all over, isn't it, George."   
  
"Maybe it is, but I still say that neither you nor Karen had the right to expect that Helen Stewart would automatically want to become involved in this case."   
  
"Karen didn't. I went to see her today, and she said that if it had been up to her, she would never have contacted Helen."   
  
"That's something, I suppose."   
  
"You think Karen Betts got everything she deserved, don't you," Jo said in a tone that could only be described as defeated.   
  
"No, of course not," Said George furiously. "But you've got to admit that she isn't entirely blameless in what happened to her."   
  
"How do you work that one out? She was raped, what more is there to it."   
  
"I know she was raped," Said George quietly, "And I have every sympathy for her in that respect. But there were things she did, that in hindsight, might have led to her being in that situation. I am in no way condoning what Fenner did," She said as Jo took a breath to respond, "But you do not go to bed with someone who you don't intend to sleep with."   
  
"Things aren't always that cut and dried."   
  
"Oh, get a grip, Jo. No woman should ever do anything as thoroughly stupid, as to take her clothes off and get in to bed with a man she doesn't want to have sex with. You just don't do it! If, without Helen Stewart's evidence, you manage to get Fenner in to court and achieve a conviction, you would be bringing justice down on one of the most loathsome human beings I've ever encountered, but I cannot agree that Karen Betts was one hundred percent innocent in the crime that was perpetrated against her." Jo stared at her and then grinned broadly.   
  
"You sound just like John," She said. Now it was George's turn to look affronted.   
  
"Rubbish," She said, scorn dripping from each syllable. Then, looking back on what she'd said, she also smiled. "God, I really am going senile," She said, lighting a cigarette. After taking a long drag, she added, "I know you think I'm being unduly harsh about what happened to Karen, but she made the mistake of provoking Fenner more than she should of done. Pushing men a little too far is something me and her have in common. The only reason Neil gave me a black-eye was because I'd said one thing too many."   
  
"What was it?"   
  
"I can't remember, something about his sexual stamina. But it pushed him that little bit further than he otherwise would have gone."   
  
"But that's no reason to do what he did."   
  
"No, and Karen voluntarily going as far as she did with Fenner is no reason for him to force her to have sex with him. All I'm saying is that if either of us had given a thought to what we were doing, Neil wouldn't have hit me and Karen wouldn't have been raped." George refilled their drinks.   
  
"How can you look at this so objectively?" Asked Jo, after lighting a cigarette of her own.   
  
"It's simple, I'm not as close to the case as you are. When you came here last week, I could already see it. You've been far too emotionally involved from the start."   
  
"I don't agree," Said Jo, knowing that George was right but loathed to say so.   
  
"The only reason you ploughed ahead with attempting to get Helen Stewart on board, without your client's consent I might add, is because you wanted the conviction too much."   
  
"I didn't tell Karen Betts in advance because I didn't want to get her hopes up," Responded Jo, now really riled.   
  
"Precisely. Jo, if you are to remain slightly aloof and detached with a case, you absolutely can not get in to the habit of allowing concern for their feelings to cloud your professional judgment. You did exactly the same thing with the Diana Halsey case."   
  
"That isn't relevant to this discussion," Put in Jo, knowing that for once, George had a stronger line up of evidence to call on.   
  
"It's about as relevant as you can get," Countered back George. "Again, you wanted the result too badly."   
  
"As a prosecutor that's my job."   
  
"You got so close to her little boy. I remember the first afternoon of the pretrial hearing. You were playing noughts and crosses with him whilst I was arguing with John. All through that case, your underlying, desperate need was to achieve justice for him and his mother. When she died halfway through, you felt like you'd failed. I suspect you think you've failed Karen Betts."   
  
"Haven't I?"   
  
"No. If anything has failed her, it's area management and the justice system, not you. You have a habit of putting yourself far too successfully in to the claimant's or defendant's shoes, and you only end up getting hurt." The phone rang. George had half a mind to leave it, but her curiosity wouldn't let her. Reaching for the cordless that lay on the coffee table, she said,   
  
"George Channing?"   
  
"Is Jo with you?" Asked John.   
  
"Yes, she is. Why?"   
  
"I just wondered."   
  
"Please go away, John. I'm in the middle of giving Jo what I think she came looking for."   
  
"What?"   
  
"A fight, something you're clearly incapable of giving her or I doubt she would have come looking to me for it." Switching the phone off before he could answer and putting it back on the table, George prepared to resume where she'd left off.   
  
"Was it that obvious?" Asked Jo quietly, all the fight seeming to have gone out of her.   
  
"A little."   
  
"I'm sorry," Said Jo, realising with a shock that this was probably the first time she'd said such a thing to George.   
  
"Don't be," Was George's response. "A verbal tussle never did anyone any harm. When I was married to John, he discovered that the quickest way to shut me up was to ignore me. It was utterly infuriating. It took him a few years to learn that, though." Remembering the time she'd demanded to know why he was so maddeningly reasonable, Jo smiled. After a few moment's silence where they both took refuge in alcohol and nicotine, Jo asked,   
  
"Would you play something for me?" At first, George simply stared at her, not knowing if she was really ready to reveal part of her soul to this woman.   
  
"Okay," She said, stubbing out her cigarette and moving to the piano. It would not after all do for Georgia Channing to refuse a challenge.   
  
As she perched on the piano stool and rested her feet on the brass pedals, she flipped through her book of Chopin until she found one that suited both her mood and the level of skill she was prepared to risk in front of Jo. She finally settled on Chopin's Nocturn in E minor: Op. 72 no.1. The piece began in the haunting key of E minor, the six-eight rhythm of the left hand wandering languorously up and down the bass clef. The two bars introduction were followed by a lilting melody consisting of either single notes or full-bodied suspension chords, leading the piece fairly quickly in to B minor. The music soon returned to its tonic key though often modulated back and forth to the dominant. Every crescendo and corresponding diminuendo was executed perfectly by George as her slight nervousness dissipated. Jo leant back in the armchair, her head resting against the upholstery, her legs stretched out in front of her and her eyes shut. Every one of Chopin's notes gradually unknotted her senses, allowing her brain to set itself free from all the recrimination. George's perfectly manicured hands took the music through a soft, sleepy section in E major, though this was only the calm before the storm. Once the piece returned to its former heading, the music took on the appearance of tinkling glass, each precisely picked out run of notes sounding like the shattering of a window pane or the seductively pattering raindrops in a rapidly approaching storm. Here, the piece moved again to B minor, crescendoing to the very height of the furure, the rain and hail depicted in the right hand and the rumbling thunder in the left. With her eyes closed, Jo could almost visualise each flash of lightening with the melody played as it was, partly in octaves, adding an extra depth to the force behind it. On reaching its peak, both the storm and the music gradually decreased, taking with them every last shred of tension present in both mind and body. It ended with a few simple E major chords in the right hand, together with the ever quietening rumble in the bass, as if the thunder had finally decided to move onwards.   
  
George sat watching Jo when her hands had stilled, thinking she looked wholly at peace.   
  
"That was incredible," Said Jo softly, finally opening her eyes and looking at George across the room. Utterly unused to receiving any kind of praise from this woman, George simply shrugged. "I'm serious," insisted Jo. "It was wonderful."   
  
"Thank you," Replied George, thoroughly unsettled by Jo's words. George had turned to face Jo, but still remained on her piano stool. After a moment's contemplation, Jo said,   
  
"Will you take over Karen Betts' case?" George waited for some clarification. "There's absolutely no chance of getting Fenner in to court at the moment, at least I don't think there is. But she almost certainly has a civil case against area management for never having investigated Fenner properly. If a civil case were successful, that might provide more backing for a criminal trial." Mulling over the idea for a moment, George said,   
  
"Of course. I'm not in court this week, so bring her to see me on Friday morning, and I'll see what I can come up with." Not long after this, Jo drove home, feeling that whilst she might have figuratively screwed up with Karen, she'd just made a lifetime's progress with George. 


	84. Part Eighty Four

Part Eighty Four   
  
Warning bells were ringing loudly in the back of Fenner's mind as he sat alone in the loud smoke filled social club. He stared down into the opaque froth on the top of his pint of beer that he held in his hand, full to the brim of his normal brew.  
  
In the same way that jangling bells at Larkhall warned every prison officer to rush to an unseen danger in some cell, along some dark corridor, the same feeling that his own feeling of security was under threat caused him to sweat and his pulse to pound faster. His personality had that paranoid quality about him that, though scheming and manoeuvring came second nature to him, he felt insecure and affronted if anyone else did the like to him. That mysterious doppleganger was stalking his every move to take away his privileges, to block his chances of ever becoming a suit, of threatening to dig the dirt on him, of getting in the way of some of his little enterprises on the side which helped pay the bills, to threaten his very existence.  
  
The more obviously dangerous enemies sneered openly at him and rejected everything that he was. They were obviously out to get him and he made no effort to smooch them up and get them to see things his way but at least everything was out in the open.The ones at their most subtle played mind games with him, being all sugary sympathetic and suggesting that he needs someone to look after him. That was the most dangerous of all as he isn't going to give up a shred of control over himself. Worst of all was their worried expression, suggesting that he needs therapy. He wasn't going to have some trick cyclist poking about with his mind, He liked his mind very much the way it is, even if he had got to use a lot more effort to keep going sometimes when he had a rough patch at work or at home. No one else was allowed to peer into his mind if he could help it, himself included. He was a man and men weren't brought up with all this feelings, all this 'I want is a hug, female rubbish and I'll look after you.'  
  
Sometimes, these shadows plotted in secret. Other times, they were there in the flesh, all female, all far too cunning for his own good, all defiant, all laughing at him, trying to blackmail him, all trying to bring him down. So he had to get in there first and drive them out, to try to get into their minds and seize hold of the slightest weakness that they betrayed, and if need be to destroy them. Sometimes there was more than one enemy and it took ice cold nerve to try to weave around them the train of thought that would divide one from the other and split the opposition.   
  
"Stay calm, stay calm." His blue and slow hypnotic eyes tried to control their very thoughts. Fleeting memories popped to the surface many years ago to that young girl who topped herself called Rachel. He jumped forward in time to when he was stuck on top of the roof talking to that other girl called Zandra who was holding that baby up in the air and finally a freeze frame image of that mad bitch Tessa Spall who was holding a hypodermic syringe to Betts's face…….. Was it to him that he was talking to reassure himself?   
  
A wave of molten anger poured over him like a lava flow , blotting out his memories. It was dangerous of him to think, thoughts were dangerous, untrustworthy and slippery. It wasn't easy being Jim Fenner, he could tell anyone who listened.   
  
Right at the end of this stream of red hot fury came the memories of the way that that snooty barrister invaded his space, the prison which he was the rightful Wing Governor if it weren't that interfering Betts woman who was sitting in his chair. That was bad enough to put up with but at least Betts is one of the Prison Officers, not a nosy parker coming to snoop on him………….  
  
Hold it, just why is Betts so pally with a barrister? What are they playing at? Could it be anything to do with that court case when, after all, he put a bit of pressure on Betts to play ball and to stick together so that they don't get verbally sliced to pieces like that posh bitch of an opposing barrister did inside and outside court. Much thanks he got from the witches coven who were assembled. It was Atkins. She was the most dangerous of all that sodding sisterhood as she was actually capable of doing something really dangerous.   
  
At that point, he reached for his pint and drained it in one gulp and he felt the ice cold liquid settle on his stomach and, as he enjoyed the taste of the brew that separated the men from the women, a feeling of reassuring warmth flowed round his veins. You're getting jumpy and overdoing it, sunshine, he told himself. Atkins is out of your life, she might as well be in another world. She's got that precious daughter to look after and she won't risk another spell banged up. She's smart, after all, knows all the risks.  
  
The social club went softly out of focus as he let his thoughts wander about aimlessly. He had got them back under control again.  
  
"Can I join you for a swift half before we go back?" Ken asked.  
  
"Yeah, go on," Fenner laughed. "but I'm back on duty in ten minutes."  
  
As he chatted away, assuming his Jack the Lad persona to Ken, a layer of his mind detached itself away to laugh at his worries and to tell himself that you think too much, son. He did make a mental note to pop in and ask Grayling if he knew of any barristers landing themselves on his doorstep. He knew that Grayling wouldn't like it any more than he does and for similar reasons.   
  
"Come on, Ken. Chop chop. Let's get back on the job," He called out and reeled slightly as he opened the door of the club on the way out.  
  
"Care to knock in future, Jim?" Grayling snapped pettishly at Fenner out of the corner of his mouth. His eyes were fixated on the laptop computer whose management internet sites held him fascinated to look into a cyberworld which could be administered and shaped to his whim. He felt that it only took a small step to translate all this into the real untidy world. He clicked out of the site and snapped shut the lid which concealed a part of his world and turned to face his one time favourite.  
  
"I'm sorry, Neil for bursting in like this, but I wanted to let you know of something on the wing you might not be aware of," said Fenner, skilfully dangling a dainty morsel of information. He had rearranged his features into his inscrutable subordinate officer version which defied anyone to know what he was really thinking.  
  
"Know what? What's been going on?"  
  
"Only just that we have had a female barrister on the wing. I know we get the usual briefs but this was the barrister who got Atkins and Merriman sent down. I assumed she was seeing you for some reason but I thought I'd check to be on the safe side."  
  
"This hasn't been cleared with me, Jim. If she isn't seeing me or you, who else could she be seeing?" Grayling glared back.  
  
"Karen Betts, Neil. She was as thick as thieves with her. Are you going to ask her what she is up to?"  
  
"Let me handle this my way." Grayling's response firmly blocked off any hints as to what he was going to do. He was eager to sponge up on the latest gossip but gave back little or nothing in return except the faintest suggestion that the informant would be in his good books. In reality, his mind was firmly made up.  
  
"Ian, it's Neil Grayling." Grayling spoke in his beast hearty fashion as one member of the Old boy's network spoke to another. "I wondered if I might pick your brains on something you may be able to help me out on."  
  
"Ask away," came Sir Ian's slightly hesitant voice down the phone. The conversation that he had had with Deed in his office jumped straight into his mind and he knew just what was coming up. This was going to be a tricky one.  
  
"If you recall the Atkins Pilkinton trial at which I had the privilege of giving evidence," Grayling led off in his self important way, which made Sir Ian smile slightly at the memory of how inept he was, "then you will remember the female barrister who prosecuted them."  
  
"Go on," Sir Ian said very guardedly.  
  
"Then you will be as surprised as I was to discover that she turned up on my doorstep to see Karen Betts, one of my Wing Governors."   
  
"On your doorstep…..you mean at your house…and Karen Betts was there as well?" Sir Ian replied, deciding in a flash that a bit of assumed obtuseness would be a good opening ploy.  
  
"At Larkhall Prison, Ian. I can tell you I was livid," Neil fumed, partly at Sir Ian who seemed to have turned positively senile. "Karen is a good Wing Governor but hardly my type to socialise with out of hours."  
  
"I bet not," Sir Ian smirked, having heard the rumours about him and the vicar at his last prison. He had been tipped off by a friend in the Home Office that they were desperately looking to get him transferred out of his previous prison until the miraculous news broke that some acting Governing Governor had unexpectedly resigned at short notice.   
  
"Anyway, I was wondering if anything might have come to your ears about the freelance actions of one of your barristers. I know that you get to hear of most things that go on."  
  
With a great effort, Sir Ian resisted Grayling's blandishments including the insinuated challenge to his vanity at knowing everything and everyone.   
  
"I'm afraid that you overestimate me, Neil, old boy. When the Roman Catholic Church determined the doctrine of Papal Infallibility in 1870, it hardly included me as a mere functionary of the Lord Chancellor's Department." Sir Ian's most patronising tones fought off the challenge. However, in his attempt at relaxed aristocratic whimsicality, Sir Ian was gravely disturbed to find himself approximating the tones and dialogue of his most hated enemy John Deed. The fact that he did it without trying or even intending to was the most worrying aspect of it.  
  
"So you are saying that you know nothing of this matter, Ian?" Came the less than cordial answer.  
  
"I'm afraid that my memory has drawn a complete blank on this, Neil. I wish I could help you out but I can't. Unless of course, I get to hear of anything in which case you have my word that you'll be the first to hear."  
  
Grayling was not deceived by Sir Ian's ringing tones of apparent enthusiastic sincerity. It was too close to one of his favourite tricks to be convincing.  
  
"Naturally I'm disappointed that you can't help out. but you have a large empire to rule and I can't expect you to know every little detail," Came the stiff response.  
  
"Have you asked Karen Betts about the matter yourself, Neil?" Sir Ian asked softly, knowing very well the answer.   
  
"Not yet. I thought I would get a bit of background first. I will though," And Grayling brought the conversation to an unusually abrupt end. He was in a bad mood. This was the first time that one of his contacts up on high had failed to give him the information he so greatly desired and that disturbed him.  
  
She watched him from an inconspicuous car as he drove home and let himself in through the front door. The pattern of the man was mapped out in her very organised mind by now. She had focussed in on every pattern of his life and, for a rootless single man, Fenner was unusually amenable to having his life mapped out. After all, he was a long serving Prison Officer and such a life governed by bolts and bars, of shiftwork and security imposed a tidy pattern on his life. If she had had to tail a second hand car salesman haring all over the country, the job would have been impossible. But he ran his routine in a very systematic way from prison to home in a regular pattern. Fortunately, his shiftwork was on a pretty stable level. As Senior Officer, she was helped by the fact that he was the top of the pile in all of the prison officers who worked at Larkhall while the next step up, the Wing Governor grade was free of all those unsocial hours unless there was the very rare emergency. Some of the junior officers had the unpleasant night shifts which he had done in his time. All in all, his position was comfortable and settled and he could look forward to carrying on in his career and to get his superannuation and the lump sum on retirement.   
  
He liked to keep himself to himself in his own community, she was glad to see. He did not have neighbours forever landing themselves on his doorstep and when he went out, it was on his terms like everything else in his highly self centred lifestyle.   
  
It was the one late night that he came home which seemed especially promising to her when the outside of his street was dark and all the curtains were tight drawn as every household did to shut out the night, any unwanted strangers and to sit in front of the TV watching the endless soaps that whiled away the time of far too many in these escapist times. But on reflection, she thought that a sunday afternoon might after all be better. Let's face it, she would need to be able to see to carry out her task. A neighbourhood which had no nosy neighbours was ideal for her purpose…… 


	85. Part Eighty Five

Part Eighty Five   
  
After talking to George on Tuesday, Jo had phoned Karen and suggested they meet outside George's office on the Friday morning at eleven. Jo briefly rolled her eyes at the directions she'd been given. Trust George to have an office right in the heart of Knightsbridge, the very centre of expensive shopping territory. Jo felt a twinge of reluctance to hand over Karen's case to someone else, but knew that George was best suited to haul area management over the coals. When she drove to George's office on the Friday morning, with a collection of files on the passenger seat, Jo just hoped that George would live up to expectation. She sat in her car for five minutes, waiting for Karen to arrive. When the green MG sports car drew up beside her, Jo got out.   
  
"How are you?" Jo asked.   
  
"Ready for round two," Karen greeted her. "do you think she'll give me as good a going over as she did in court?" Jo smiled.   
  
"I'd say that's highly likely, but after what I saw in court, I suspect you can give as good as you get. George will be on your side, don't forget. She just might not always show it, that's all. I'll hand over the case files and then make myself scarce. George is far more likely to be nicer to you if I'm not there." Karen relieved Jo of a couple of the files.   
  
"You really manage to antagonise each other, don't you."   
  
"Force of habit more than anything else. Me and George have got under each other's skin for years, ever since I put the final nail in the coffin of her marriage," Jo said bitterly.   
  
"You sound like you regret it," Said Karen gently, as they walked across the carpark.   
  
"I didn't used too, but she's changed. I'm just not used to getting on with her in even the slightest sense."   
  
"Talking of meeting people half way," Said Karen conversationally, "I spoke to Helen after you left on Tuesday."   
  
"I thought you might. How did it go?"   
  
"A bit awkward, but I had to do it, if for nothing else than that I owed her a year's worth of apologies."   
  
"You are in no way responsible for what happened to her," Said Jo emphatically.   
  
"Perhaps not," Conceded Karen, "But if I hadn't been quite so blind, she might have been able to talk to me."   
  
When George's secretary led them upstairs, Karen was impressed at the extremely plush surroundings. Taking note of her appraisal, Jo said,   
  
"Now I know why George does civil work." When they were shown in to George's office, Jo decided that she really was in the wrong branch of the legal system. It was a large, spacious room, tastefully decorated in soft pastels, clearly meant to put any client at their ease. The large windows gave it a light, airy feel, in contrast with the floor to ceiling book shelves that filled most of the available wall space. Spying the Munnings above the desk, Jo briefly wondered if it belonged to George or the firm. The mahogany desk was enormous, and held a computer plus numerous scattered law books, a half full ashtray and piles of postits and phone messages in varying sizes. George rose from an equally large, leather swivel chair in front of the desk and came forward to meet them.   
  
"Hello," She said, holding out a hand to Karen, both of them remembering the last time they'd met, when George had told Karen a couple of home truths about Ritchie.   
  
"Nice place you have here," Said Karen drily. "I'm clearly in the wrong job."   
  
"Well, the deciding factor in my choice of career was without doubt my access to immediate retail therapy," George replied with a smile. Jo wasn't used to seeing George so genial, and privately thought it suited her more than the brash, abrasive outer shell she usually displayed. Relieving them of the case files, George asked her secretary to bring them some coffee. Glancing briefly through the Fenner file which she'd seen before, she laid it aside.   
  
"There's at least one significant new entry in there that you need to see," Said Jo from where she and Karen were seated across from George. Flipping through all the previously viewed reports and accounts of various acts of indiscretion, George came to Yvonne's and Helen's accounts of the O'Kane debacle. She ran her eyes over each in turn and then replaced them in the folder.   
  
"Yvonne is also in the process of hunting for any photographs her daughter might have taken of Fenner's involvement with O'Kane's brothels," Added Jo.   
  
"An extremely enterprising woman, your girlfriend," Said George smiling at Karen, clearly impressed.   
  
"Yes, so I'm finding out," Replied Karen drily.   
  
"It was also Yvonne who managed to track down Helen Stewart," Put in Jo.   
  
"After the entire staff of area management failed to find even the merest hint of her," Said Karen scornfully.   
  
"I don't know, Mrs. Mills," George tutted in mock disapproval. "Using nefarious means to hunt down possible witnesses, that's almost a hanging offense." Taking note of the glint of amusement in her eye, Jo replied,   
  
"It's no more shocking than your calling in a favour from an ex-client in area management to get hold of any dirt on as many of my witnesses as possible." George grinned.   
  
"Touché. Now, what else have you brought to clutter up my office?"   
  
"That's a copy of Michelle Dockley's entire prison file," Said Karen, pointing to one of the folders. "I made a copy of it when she was transferred to Ashmore. She knows more about Fenner than the rest of us put together. It won't make very pleasant reading."   
  
"Just what I needed to brighten up my evening," Commented George. Gesturing to another folder, Karen said,   
  
"I also took the liberty of making a copy of Maxi Purvis's file. It's over a year since she died, but area management still haven't asked for it. It will show Fenner's initial leniency with her, even going so far as to suggest putting her and her sidekick up on enhanced when she hadn't been there long enough or done anything significant to deserve such a privilege. That was shortly followed by the discovery that she was one of Virginia O'Kane's killers. It's clutching at straws, but it's always possible that O'Kane's other killer, Alison McKenzy might be able to tell us something useful about Fenner's involvement with Purvis."   
  
"Well, after our heated little exchange in court, there's no way she'll talk to me in a hurry," replied George. "But you might make some headway with her." Jo gestured to the last folder in the pile.   
  
"That's the response I got from the CPS, plus their recommendations which they would want to see fulfilled before considering taking this forward."   
  
"In other words, probably nothing we don't know already," Said George, her antipathy for the prosecuting establishment all too evident.   
  
"I think that's my cue to leave you to it," Said Jo getting to her feet, for once wholeheartedly agreeing with George's dislike of those in suits who decided on the credibility and likely success or failure of a case. As she picked up her handbag, Jo caught sight of a magnificent bouquet of roses displayed to perfection in a cut glass vase on a small table under the window.   
  
"Are they from anyone I know?" She asked, gesturing to the flowers.   
  
"Calm down," Said George rolling her eyes. "They're not from John. They're just one of Neil's tokens of guilt. It won't do him any good though." Jo visibly relaxed. George turned to Karen. "I won't be long," She said, following Jo out of the door. As they walked downstairs, Jo said,   
  
"You didn't need to escort me to my car, George."   
  
"No, but I think Karen needs a moment to read the transcript of her conversation with you. I know I would if I was in her position." George was right. As soon as the two women had left, Karen picked up the thickest file from the desk and leafed through it until she came across the transcript of her conversation with Jo almost two weeks before. It is an understandable desire for those who have been severely wronged, to want to see another's interpretations of their account of such an event, and Karen was no exception. She was surprised at the level of detail contained in this document, and inwardly shrank from the noting of her crying, her ultimate lack of control. When George returned to her office, she wasn't at all surprised to see Karen reading the transcript. George simply stood and watched her for a moment, until, observing that Karen had completed her perusal, plucked it unceremoniously from her hand and replaced it in the file.   
  
"I'm sorry," Said Karen, having the grace to blush slightly.   
  
"It's perfectly natural to want to see how someone else has interpreted your account of something like this. But if there's anything I write on you and this case that you want to see, just ask. I won't bite." Karen smiled.   
  
"So, where do we go from here?" She asked. George began rifling through the initial folder, the one containing all of Fenner's supposed misdemeanours.   
  
"We need to sort out what is and what isn't hearsay evidence."   
  
"Unfortunately, I think too much of it is," Replied Karen regretfully.   
  
"Ah, well, with a civil case, that's not too much of a problem. If this were already going to court through the criminal or common law channels, then hearsay evidence would pose some difficulty."   
  
"I thought all hearsay evidence was routinely dismissed at the word go."   
  
"No. According to the Civil Evidence Act, evidence shall not be excluded on the ground that it is hearsay. However, where Rachel Hicks is concerned, we don't have any evidence, hearsay or otherwise, that he actually slept with her."   
  
"The only other person apart from Shell Dockley who seems to know of the existence of a relationship between Fenner and Hicks is Daniella Blood, one of the other inmates. Jo spoke to her last week, and Denny certainly knows more than Fenner would like her too."   
  
"What sort of prison record does she have?"   
  
"Not brilliant, but far better than it used to be."   
  
"Which means the defence would immediately discredit her as a viable witness. A written statement from her might be better."   
  
"I'll see what I can do. She's another one who you won't get near because of Merriman."   
  
"I can see that case is going to haunt me for ever more," Said George bitterly.   
  
"It only will if you let it," Said Karen quietly. George stared at her for a moment, briefly wondering just where this woman's level of understanding came from. It was almost on the tip of her tongue to tell Karen exactly what ramifications the Merriman case had had on her life, but the nerve to do so just wasn't there. Turning back to the open case file, George extracted the report on Maxi Purvis's suicide, and drew forward the dead girl's prison file.   
  
"There is documented evidence here of Fenner's leniency with Maxine Purvis," George continued. "It says here that he recommended her for a raise in prison regime. I'd have thought that should have come from the Wing Governor."   
  
"That would have been when I was temporarily demoted," Replied Karen. George lifted her gaze from the file and stared at Karen.   
  
"What on earth for?"   
  
"I'd never prove it, but I suspect I was replaced by Fenner, because I was a woman." Then, on seeing George's raised eyebrow, she said, "Grayling has a preference for the boys, and found that Fenner somewhat suited his tastes." George's eyes widened in astonishment.   
  
"How could anyone possibly find that odious cretin attractive?" Then, realising that Karen must once have found said cretin attractive enough to consider marrying him, she said, "Oh god, I'm sorry. Tact isn't something I possess in vast quantities." Karen gave her a broad smile.   
  
"It's okay. I think I must have had a personality bypass to not see what he was really like." George returned to the file.   
  
"The knickers that were left in your in-tray, I'm assuming they belonged to Maxine Purvis?"   
  
"Yes, though he wouldn't admit it."   
  
"That's no surprise. Would you say he was a compulsive liar?"   
  
"Yes. He's got this way of convincing himself that he hasn't done any of the things he's accused of doing." Briefly thinking that this sounded vaguely like Neil, George said,   
  
"I need to examine the recently updated Sexual Offences Act. That's one piece of legislation I'm not up to speed on because it's not something that usually applies to civil cases." George led Karen out of her office and up to the fifth floor, which was designated in its entirety to the firm's law library. Shelves from floor to ceiling ran as far round the enormous room as possible, allowing for tall, wide windows here and there to let in the daylight. As well as copies of every piece of legislation available in printed form, there were ranks of leather-bound law books and endless reams of academic journals and law reviews. George moved to the shelves that held the copies of this year's parliament approved legislation. On finding that the S's, being towards the end of the alphabet, were on the higher shelves, George rolled her eyes and stretched. Observing that George was totally unable to reach what she was looking for, Karen displayed the advantage of her extra height and took down the thick wad of paper that was the Sexual Offences Act of 2003.   
  
"Thank you," George said, taking it from her. "I loathe being small, but there isn't much I can do about it." Privately thinking that George looked enchanting as she was, Karen followed her to a nearby table. On opening this thick, barely read tome, George was confronted by a straightforward definition of rape.   
  
"Rape  
  
(1) A person (A) commits an offence if-  
  
(a) he intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person (B) with his penis,  
  
(b) B does not consent to the penetration, and  
  
(c) A does not reasonably believe that B consents."   
  
George looked up.   
  
"I'm assuming that what Fenner did to you was purely vaginal?" She asked quietly, swiveling what she was reading round so that Karen could see what she was getting at. Inwardly, Karen recoiled from the brutal description of Fenner's act, but outwardly remained calm.   
  
"Oh, yeah," She replied. "He never was one for much out of the ordinary." In spite of their talking quietly, Karen was relieved that they were alone in this cavernous volt of judicial history.   
  
"I know I've read both what you said to Jo, and your statement to the police," Continued George, "But you did definitely make it clear to him that you didn't want what he was doing?"   
  
"Yes," Said Karen firmly. "He couldn't have been in any doubt." Observing a couple of her colleagues appearing, George stood up.   
  
"Let's take this back downstairs," She said, retrieving a copy of the Protection From Harassment Act on her way.   
  
When they re-entered her office, Karen took the chair she'd sat in before, and abandoning the impersonality of her desk, George took one nearby.   
  
"One thing that the defence will do their damnedest to establish," She said carefully, "Is why you let things go as far as you did, and why you didn't report it immediately. The defence won't only do that if he ever gets brought to trial, they will also try it with this case, because yours is the strongest evidence for having Fenner thoroughly investigated by area management. It's not me personally who is questioning what you did, but I would be failing in my duty if I didn't warn you of the defence's likely line of attack."   
  
"I know," Said Karen, regretting for the millionth time her actions on that fateful evening. "All I can say in my own defence, is that I had lived with him for some time, and I never thought he would go that far if I said no. He might be a compulsive liar, but the one thing he's always stayed resolute about is that he loves me. Ridiculous I know, but there you are. I sincerely never thought he could or would do that to me. It never even entered my head that he was guilty of what Helen had accused him of. I suppose I thought I knew him." George walked over to her desk and returned with the ashtray and her cigarettes. As she lit one, she said,   
  
"It's funny, but we are two extremely intelligent women, but who at the same time, manage to provoke our men in to doing things we never would have previously thought them capable of, just on that one occasion, we pushed them farther than they'd ever been pushed before. Yet if either of us had ever given the slightest thought to the consequences of our actions, we could have avoided the eventual outcome."   
  
"You're saying we, like you know what I'm talking about," Said Karen quietly, fixing George with her penetrating gaze.   
  
"Different context and different crime, but yes, though it's fair to say that you got a far worse deal than I did. If the barrister that area management employ has one ounce of ruthlessness about them, that is without doubt what they'll throw at you. But what you have got to keep in mind if you're not going to lose your nerve, is that you are doing the right thing, and that there is absolutely no excuse for what Fenner has done to you, or to Helen or to anybody else. I know I might seem a little brash and brutal sometimes, but it wouldn't do you any good for me to treat you with kid gloves, because the defence most certainly won't."   
  
"Actually," Said Karen, lighting a cigarette of her own, "It's quite refreshing, and as for losing my nerve, or losing it in general, I might have done that once," She said, her eyes straying to the file that held the transcript of her conversation with Jo, "I'm not about to do it again."   
  
"Losing it, as you put it, isn't anything to be ashamed of," Said George gently, knowing exactly what Karen was referring to. "As Jo said to me a few weeks ago, believe it or not, we all do it, and the secret is not to be afraid of it." Then, at Karen's look of incredulity, she said, "I know, I didn't take much notice of it either." Karen grinned. "Yes," Said George cynically, "The thought of me and Jo having a civil conversation that doesn't involve a case is a little odd to say the least."   
  
"In spite of the sheer antagonism between you two, Jo wouldn't have recommended you without good reason."   
  
"Well, let's hope I can live up to expectation. I will go through the rest of the Sexual Offences Act and the Protection From Harassment Act, to see if there are any other grounds to force area management to start doing their job, but there is one thing that I think you ought to do without delay. Michelle Dockley is currently incarcerated in Ashmore secure psychiatric hospital. If you can, I think you should try to see her. She holds a lot of the loose ends to this case, and if nothing else, she could fill in a few gaps."   
  
"They won't let me see her without a court order, I'm not a relative."   
  
"Then your best bet would be to ask John to issue one. He won't do it for me, but he will for you. He doesn't give out the kind of complement that he did to you in court, without good reason. I'm sure if you ask him nicely, he'll issue a court order to give you access to Dockley."   
  
"But can he do that without an official application?"   
  
"In a civil case, yes. In section 3.3 subsection 4 of the Civil Procedure Rules, it categorically states that the court may make an order of its own initiative, without hearing the parties or giving them an opportunity to make representations, which means that we need not apply for one, and that area management need not know of its existence. It also means that we don't need to wait until they are apprised of the emerging case against them before finding out what Dockley may be able to tell us."   
  
"When would be the best time to approach him?"   
  
"I'm before him in court on Monday, which would be as good a time as any, the sooner the better. You could try during the lunchtime adjournment." When Karen left a short time later, she felt for the first time since deciding to begin proceedings, that they really were in with a chance. 


	86. Part Eighty Six

Part Eighty Six   
  
"And how did you get on in one of Her Majesty's Prisons, Jo? Did you find it the sort of institution that the more reactionary members of the judiciary think are too lenient on prisoners?" John started off the conversation.  
  
Jo Mills had been unusually quiet when she came to visit him in chambers. She took a long look at the volumes of reference books that lined a wall of John's chambers. Till her visit to Larkhall, she viewed them only as an accumulated source of learning to be deployed for the purposes of him, as the ultimate repository of knowledge. Some of the more ancient leather bound volumes belonged to the Victorian era having been thumbed and fingered by generations of judges past in search of precedent and case law. Once a particular prominent court case had decided someone's future ,it cast its long shadow through the generations unless the passing of a law stopped it in its tracks and relegated it to history. To Jo, the whole legal process operated like some enormous cat's cradle of interlocking threads woven round innumerable fingers and thumbs yet which conformed to an overall structure, amorphous though it appeared to be. It was a common trait of the judiciary to delight in these structured abstractions as much as a sculptor had for the feel for marble and clay in his hand.   
  
All this appeared to be the structure for the ever changing script outlines for such as her, or George or any other practising barrister to appear on the courtroom stage. The walk on parts were the ever changing cast who appeared in the dock, centre stage, to be found guilty or innocent as the case may be or the witnesses speaking for or against the accused. And like an actor, she had finely honed her array of oratorical techniques to shape the outcome of the play. The difference was that they all shaped the writing and the final outcome of the play.  
  
True, both she and John had more than an interest purely in the techniques of their profession. Ever since she witnessed John help out her own father, many years ago when he was a practising barrister, both had a burning wish to shape their skills in the cause of justice, the righting of wrongs and that the morally guilty should be brought to book. Both their sense of justice had been sharpened, not blunted by the passing of the years when the culture of political expediency had pervaded society more and more. Both defied the hackneyed saying that at twenty, you are an ardent Socialist and at fifty a right wing Conservative. John Deed bucked this trend as he did so much in this corrupt society and Jo followed suit in her feminine intuitive fashion. She was not some mere John Deed acolyte.   
  
What she had never thought of was what happened to the countless women who had been found guilty by the judicial process.  
  
"Like someone had stepped over my grave," Jo shivered. "I've heard many stories of crimes committed by clients that I've prosecuted or occasionally defended. I thought that when I had helped secure a guilty verdict, the accused is spirited away to disappear for so many years to a place called prison. I never thought that the prisoners would have to exist, jammed on top of each other, day in day out. It's a whole different world that's so hard to explain," She finished, struggling to find words to express her thoughts.  
  
"In what way, Jo?" John asked softly.He was alert in a second. It was not like Jo to talk this way. At times, he thought ruefully of some of their more confrontational moments that her facility with words was too good.  
  
"It's a whole different world that swallows you up while you are there. I wonder now just how much it had marked even Yvonne Atkins. I remember looking round the gallery at the Atkins Pilkinton trial and it seemed unreal that any of them had done time." Jo shook her head.  
  
"Start from the beginning. I'm interested and I hope that I can help you."  
  
Jo took a sip from the sherry glass and placed it carefully on one side.  
  
"You go in past the security gate and your personal possessions are searched from top to bottom, they have to as they have to treat all visitors the same. I walked into this stone courtyard where nobody is allowed outside and went through two sets of barred gates and into this huge echoing space that is hemmed in with metal walkways and more bars and bolts.The world is shut in behind you. Right up in the ceiling are a line of curved windows, like in a shopping mall but nothing like you've ever seen before……….At the best of times, Karen must have to have eyes in the back of her head without someone like Fenner who systematically abused the trust not only of the prisoners in his charge but of a Wing Governor who was trying to do some good with the system that they were stuck with, like Karen, like Helen and like we are trying to do with the legal system in our way. It all connects if you look hard enough," Jo said slowly and reflectively.  
  
John had the strong feeling that she was speaking to make sense as much as to herself as to him. He nodded at her but said nothing in order to let her continue uninterrupted.   
  
"I'm struggling to get my head round this. There's a culture of bullying there where the weakest go to the wall. Rachel Hicks did because of being bullied by two other prisoners and being let down by Fenner who used her for what he wanted and let her down when she got into trouble. Yet Shell Dockley was beaten up once by Fenner in her turn before ending up at Ashmore. The more you start asking questions, the more questions you find that need asking." Jo's halting speech, feeling her way, finally petered out.  
  
"What do you want me to do, Jo? You know that I have all the sympathy in the world but that isn't enough," John's gentle voice broke in on her thoughts.  
  
"A civil case against prison service area management for negligence," came Jo's very precise, clearly articulated reply. "There are a series of files festering in their vaults that should have been followed up and, if linked together, would have given cause for a comprehensive enquiry. What do they have Human Resource departments for? Item one, the report into the assault on Shell Dockley where two witnesses senior to Fenner gave evidence that blows Fenner's version of the incident right out of the water. Added to that is the very suspicious retraction by Shell Dockley at a later date which was taken at face value by the Governing Governor and, by implication area. In turn, Shell Dockley's evidence casts light on the relationship between him and Rachel Hicks and, item two, the never resolved enquiry into her suicide. Item three is the escape of Shell Dockley and two other prisoners and the Area investigation who laid the blame on the Governing Governor as formally responsible for the overall running of the prison at a time when a TV film crew had access to the prison. Specific questions as to who did what at the time were never followed up   
  
Item four, while it won't be on any official files, there are allegations that Fenner- the name keeps cropping up, doesn't it- was involved in managing a chain of brothels for the benefit of the owner who was an inmate of Larkhall and receiving a share of the earnings. Item five is the report into the suicide of Maxi Purvis and Fenner's suspiciously lenient treatment in terms of her privileges who had been later found out to be one of the murderers of the brothel owner. Oh yes, and we have Grayling's handling of when Fenner raped Karen. It would be interesting to know if area were aware of the matter and what role they played."  
  
"There is the makings of a case in just the way that you indicate, Jo."  
  
"George has agreed to take this case on. It's more her field. Besides, she has the greater ability to worm out the extra information that would bolster up the case."  
  
"A month or so ago, you would have said that she was just the sort of ruthless and scheming woman with the ability to handle this kind of work and, if the fee wasn't big enough to afford to clear out half the contents of Harrods, she wouldn't dream of taking it on," John smiled as he recalled some of George's more sensational outbursts right up to midway through the Atkins Pilkinton case.  
  
"if George was the same as she was a month ago," Jo grinned, "She would have had that door down for good. " She pointed at the nice shiny new brass hinges on the door which was a permanent memento of life in the cloistered chambers of England's ancient and respectable order of the judiciary.  
  
The moonlight shone through the bedroom window and cast a gentle light on the strongly marked lines that drew Yvonne's face. Her hair, normally so spiky as her personality yet every hair in its place was dishevelled as Karen's long shapely fingers rested gently on the smooth skin of Yvonne's shoulder and her other arm was trapped underneath her yet held onto her. She looked at peace in sleep and there was much more of a feeling of peace since that fateful night when Karen had asked Mark Waddle home to spend the night with her to round off the sharp edges of their fragile relationship. This time, there wasn't that sense of strain. She felt no compulsion to leave her bed and smoke a lonely cigarette in the cold frozen air of her kitchen. That was the last thing she felt like doing as even her restless nicotine craving was at rest. Gently, her lips lightly caressed Yvonne's face.  
  
"Whatsamatter, Karen, you've let me go to sleep when that's the last thing I wanted to do?" her sleepy mumble roused her to wake and her mouth hungrily sought out Karen's.   
  
She's as insatiable as I am and I thought that was impossible, a stray thought crossed Karen's mind as their bodies moulded together naturally with all the heat and passion that came so naturally to them now and mixed sensations overtook her of the taste of Yvonne's skin and the moonlight tinted darkness. It seemed a long time since they were together and the feelings of restraint that they ought to act properly in front of Lauren had taken a little while to dissolve away into the pure physical satisfaction that they both knew now that they needed.  
  
"How did you get let out of Fort Knox, Yvonne?" came the throaty, out of breath voice as they both lay on their backs, sweaty but feeling complete.  
  
"I've had to prove myself bleeding super mum to Lauren just to reassure her," Came the joking reply. "Seriously though, once I've proved to her that having a new partner wasn't going to be a threat to her, then she's gone back to going out clubbing. Mums are boring to watch telly with. She stayed over at Cassie and Roisin's and that changed her but I don't know how or why."  
  
"Don't ask questions, darling. You might not want to know the answer," Came Karen's low laugh and her full kiss on the lips.  
  
Yvonne smiled in the reflection of feeling totally free with the cool air next to her skin and the bedclothes all askew, half off the bed.  
  
"Ross is off somewhere in the great unknown.It was different when he was growing up. Half the time, I was on my own rushing round making sure he was off for school before I set off for the morning shift for work and feeling guilty as hell because I was a working mum and he was with childminders in the school holidays. The other half, he was having to get used to another boyfriend of mine. I missed not seeing more of him than I did and it hurt worse when he first set off for uni," Karen sighed. "but it's up to him to make his own way in life if being a student isn't for him."  
  
"Kids, eh?" came the reflective reply. "but you come to the point when you have to have a life for yourself. Anyway, why are we talking about kids?" her bemused tones asked herself as much as Karen.  
  
"Search me," came the reply.  
  
"Haven't we got better things to be doing?" smiled Yvonne as she moved towards Karen. Part of the sweetness of their lovemaking came from how they had to make the most of their chances and claim their lives for their own. The demands of motherhood were a hard habit for both of them to break, so they realised, even at a moment like this. 


	87. Part Eighty Seven

Part Eighty Seven   
  
On the Monday morning, three days after Karen's meeting with George, John found himself walking through the foyer of the Old Bailey, on his way to buy a newspaper, when he caught sight of George pushing her way through the main doors, a collection of files under her arm. Today was the beginning of a pretrial hearing with her as the defence and Neumann Mason-Alan as prosecutor, someone who George and John for that matter had always despised. He had a reputation for leading the witnesses at every opportunity and of introducing the flimsiest of evidence. As George strode towards John, one of the files slipped from under her arm, scattering its contents far and wide. Taking one look at her face, John was briefly reminded of the time when a three-year-old Charlie had spilt Ribena all over George's favourite cream suit jacket. Instead of cursing the file and its contents to high heaven, she simply stood, closed her eyes for a moment, and took in a slow, deep breath. As she began to pick up the far flung papers, John went to her assistance. Knowing from passed experiences that it was better to let her calm down in her own time, he didn't say a word.   
  
"Thank you," She said, when all the stray documents had been reassembled. "I swear this is the last straw."   
  
"Why?" He asked tentatively, feeling that the rant was about to emerge.   
  
"First, I overslept. Then, the stupid car wouldn't start, and you know what it's like trying to find a cab at this time of the morning. So, I had to get the tube, where I had to stand pressed up against a disgusting old man who kept leering at me." John grinned.   
  
"I'm not surprised," He said, reaching forward to do up the top two buttons of her blouse. "I bet he thought it was his lucky day." George looked down, at his all too familiar hand, hiding away the stunning exhibition of her utterly enchanting breasts encased in cream lace.   
  
"Oh, no," She groaned. "Trust you to be the one to see that."   
  
"You should learn to get up in the morning, then you wouldn't have this problem," He said, clearly flirting with her.   
  
"Perhaps the only advantage of living with either you or Neil," George replied scathingly, "Is that you are both insufferably cheerful first thing in the morning, so you force me to get up out of pure irritation." John grimaced.   
  
"I don't want to have anything in common with that loathsome individual."   
  
"Who's prosecuting today?" Asked George, changing the topic of conversation. "Because whoever it is had better be ready for my wrath."   
  
"Well, just remember that court is not the place to work off your anger. Neumann Mason-Alan is prosecuting, so I'm sure you'll give him a bumpy ride."   
  
"You're quite bloody right I will. He's the most pathetic barrister I think I've ever been up against."   
  
A while later when the three of them were going over the evidence in order for John to decide what was admissible and what wasn't, George could feel the slow, inexorable rise of her temper. It hadn't entirely subsided since her fraught journey to work, but this jumped up, pathetic upstart of a man was really beginning to get on her nerves. He usually did criminal work, and was persisting in his quest to get most of her evidence discounted on the grounds that it was hearsay.   
  
"My Lord," George intoned, her anger becoming palpable. "As I have stated in this very court many times before, there are grounds within the rules and legislation of civil procedure, that do allow for the submission and use of what some may class as hearsay evidence."   
  
"I am well aware of that, Ms Channing, but the interpretation of civil procedure may only be taken so far."   
  
"My Lord, such an assertion is utterly preposterous. If my learned friend here were not so used to the rules governing criminal evidence and procedure, and had taken the time to make himself even slightly aware of the relevant statutes governing civil procedure, he would not now be objecting to the evidence I am seeking to submit." Neuman Mason-Alan gritted his teeth but remained silent in the face of such a wild card as his current adversary. He was aware of the past between Georgia Channing and John Deed, and couldn't for the life of him see what they must once have had in common.   
  
"Ms Channing, I am finding in favour of the prosecution."   
  
"But My Lord..."   
  
"You know better than to interrupt me, Ms Channing. I am finding in favour of the prosecution, because I would cast serious doubt as to the actual, genuine existence of the ludicrously flimsy evidence you are seeking to submit."   
  
"My Lord, surely this is precisely the nature of hearsay evidence."   
  
"That's debatable and you know it."   
  
"I would argue that it is, My Lord. Therefore, I must insist that the evidence in favour of my client be included without further delay."   
  
"You have no power to make such an demand, as well you know. I have ruled on this, Ms Channing, and that is the end of the matter."   
  
"But my Lord, this means that my client has almost no evidence with which to defend himself."   
  
"Quite, which should mean that this is an open and shut case. A couple of days should see it through."   
  
"Surely such a remark is an indication of your partiality in favour of the claimant, My Lord. One might ask if you should be hearing this case." John had heard quite enough.   
  
"Ms Channing, I have put up with your thoroughly contemptuous behaviour all morning. It will not continue."   
  
"I am simply trying to defend my client in order to achieve a measure of justice, My Lord."   
  
"No you're not. You have persistently sought to undermine my authority and I will not put up with it a moment longer. I find you in clear, unequivocal contempt of this court, and you will be removed to a cell until you can learn to behave in a respectful manner towards me and to purge your contempt to my satisfaction. Will the dock officer please remove Ms Channing to a cell. Court is adjourned." George couldn't believe he'd done this to her again. As the dock officer took hold of her arm, she shook him off and stalked ahead of him, not willing to be subservient to such a mere mortal. But when he closed the by now familiar door behind her, she slumped on to the generic plastic chair, and felt utterly miserable. This was the third time she'd done this in front of John, and he would be well within his rights to formally punish her for it. He was able to wind her up so easily, and she hated him for it. But then, it wasn't really him she hated for her own lack of self-control, it was herself, she who couldn't even keep a lid on her temper. She felt thoroughly dejected, as empty and deflated as a burst balloon. She'd been here often enough before, to know that being galvanized in to almost reckless action one minute and returning to sheer misery the next, was never a good sign.   
  
As Karen drove in to the carpark of the Old Bailey, she felt slightly odd at coming here without the company of Yvonne, Cassie and Roisin. They had presented a united front throughout the Merriman/Atkins trial, and it felt a little daunting to wander amongst the legal personnel on her own. She pushed open the heavy front doors and walked in to the foyer. Not knowing who to approach or where to start looking for the Judge, she approached a man who looked to her as if he came here on a regular basis.   
  
"Excuse me," She said to Neuman Mason-Alan who was sitting reading a newspaper. "Has court adjourned for lunch?"   
  
"Yes," Said this barrister, taking in Karen's very attractive form. "The Judge was forced to adjourn after having defence council removed for being in contempt of court." He seemed to enjoy passing on this piece of information. Briefly smiling at the memory of George doing this during the trial, Karen said,   
  
"Would you know where I might find the Judge?"   
  
"I'd assume he'd be in his chambers." Following the route she'd taken after her long day of questioning and cross-examination, Karen climbed the stairs and traversed the long corridor and hoped that the Judge would see her. As John wasn't with anyone, Coope showed Karen straight in. John was also immersed in a newspaper, but looked up as Coope appeared.   
  
"Karen Betts to see you, Judge." Putting the paper aside, John stood up and moved forward to greet her.   
  
"This is a pleasant surprise," He said, giving her a broad smile.   
  
"I don't want to disturb you," Said Karen, not altogether sure if she should have come here.   
  
"You're not. Would you like to join me for lunch?"   
  
"Thank you, that would be nice." Asking Coope to bring them some sandwiches, John gestured Karen to a chair.   
  
"How's life behind Her Majesty's bars?" He asked, pouring her some coffee.   
  
"Not enough funding, too many inmates, the same as ever. How about you?"   
  
"I'm not sure which is worse," Said John contemplatively. "The criminals who appear before me, or barristers who insist on breaking the rules."   
  
"When I asked someone downstairs if court was still in session, he told me that you'd had another run in with George."   
  
"Let me guess, tall, dark-haired, and with the reputation of leading witnesses as if they were wearing a bridle." Karen laughed.   
  
"Sounds about right."   
  
"He's acting for the prosecution, but he absolutely shouldn't be talking about that. I loathe people who insist on gossipping to all and sundry about things that really don't concern them."   
  
"So, how do you reward such displays of verbal carelessness?" Asked Karen, her slightly flirtatious tone matching his. John fixed his gaze on her.   
  
"I have the gossips' tongues cut out."   
  
"I don't doubt it," Replied Karen, grinning at him from under her eyelashes.   
  
"Do you remember my having George removed to a cell during the Merriman/Atkins trial?"   
  
"How could I forget. Up until then, I'd thought a Judge couldn't do that to a barrister."   
  
"She pulled another stunt like that this morning. It's her third time, and I can't go on letting her get away with it."   
  
"What's the alternative?"   
  
"If I sentenced George to a night in the local remand prison, Larkhall for example, it would ruin her both as a barrister and as a person."   
  
"I might have only spent an hour or so with her," Said Karen guardedly, "but I think a night in that place would do her far more harm than good." John scrutinized Karen, seeing in her a level of understanding that he'd only previously guessed at.   
  
"Hmm," He said, "Not something I want to do unless its absolutely necessary. The only other course of action left open to me is a fine, but even if I gave her the maximum, it's only as much as she'd spend on a dress." Coope brought in some lunch for them, and as they ate, an idea began to slowly take shape in Karen's mind. They left the subject of George and her errant behaviour alone for a while, and talked of inconsequential things until, after lighting a cigarette, Karen put forward her suggestion.   
  
"A conviction for anything wouldn't exactly do a QC's reputation any good. So, why not let her off this time, but actually get her to take a serious look at the consequences of being punished for it."   
  
"Go on," John replied, thinking that any new idea on this one was certainly worth hearing.   
  
"Give her a warning, tell her that this is the last time you are prepared to be lenient. But as a condition of her only receiving a warning, get her to spend a day shadowing me. I'll take her through it, show her the parts of a prison that most barristers never see, and explain to her exactly what would happen to her if you did impose a night in custody. Trust me, a few hours in Larkhall, even knowing that she can walk away at the end of it, might just do the trick. Like you said, this is her third time, and perhaps she keeps offending because she isn't really aware of the consequences of her actions." John was amazed. Not even if he'd spent all day mulling over the matter would he have thought of this.   
  
"You're a genius," He said. "and if it's a condition of my leniency, not even George can argue with it."   
  
"Have you ever thought about why she does it?"   
  
"Other than that she has an extremely low boiling point, and that she can't accept not being given her own way, no."   
  
"I had two weeks to observe the way you, Jo and George interact with each other."   
  
"Not something I'd recommend to anyone," Said John drily which made Karen smile.   
  
"George hates being proved wrong by you. At first, I thought it was Jo's presence that was winding her up, but it wasn't. It was being before you that was getting to her. George hates it whenever you are there to witness her failure. She needs to constantly prove herself professionally, in order to show herself and you that she doesn't still need your approval. Does that make sense?"   
  
"Yes, it does," He said, a little surprised. "You didn't tell me you had a qualification in psychology as well as a clear leaning towards adversarial skill."   
  
"I suspect I'm not the only one who uses observation of human interaction as a nice little sideline. As a judge, you have to do it as a matter of course, and as a wing governor, it's how I keep things on an even keel." John smiled.   
  
"I could write a paper on that," He said, refilling their coffee cups. "And I didn't ask why you came to see me today, though I have to tell you that the interruption was most welcome."   
  
"How much has Jo told you about the Fenner case?"   
  
"She did tell me that at present, there isn't enough evidence to proceed to a criminal trial, and that she'd passed you over to George, with a view to forming a civil case against area management for not having done their job with regards to James Fenner."   
  
"George thinks it would be a good idea if I could talk to one of Fenner's victims, who is currently languishing in Ashmore special psychiatric hospital. Michelle Dockley holds many of the loose ends of this case. One might almost say that she has more info on Fenner than the rest of us put together. The problem is that I can't see Dockley under normal circumstances, because of where she is, and because I'm not a relative. George suggested that I should ask you if you would issue a court order, giving me permission to talk to Dockley."   
  
"George didn't mention this when I saw her this morning." Karen grinned.   
  
"She told me on Friday that you wouldn't do this for her, but that you might for me." John laughed.   
  
"George knows perfectly well that I'd do anything for her, if only she'd learn to ask nicely."   
  
"I wouldn't tell her that if I were you," Said Karen with a broad smile. "You might end up regretting it."   
  
"Of course I'll issue the court order," Said John, becoming serious again. "As I assume this needs to be done without delay, I'll do it at the end of this afternoon's session, and get Coope to fax it to you."   
  
"Thank you. If nothing else, Dockley will be able to fill in a few gaps."   
  
George was sitting exactly where she had since she'd been locked in this hell hole, just staring blindly at the dull, gray wall in front of her. She didn't have the energy to be angry, and what purpose would it serve. John would let her out of here, and only when he was good and ready. When she heard the key turn in the lock, she steadfastly kept her gaze away from whoever it was who'd come to see her. Putting the custody officer's keys that he'd been loaned in his pocket, John closed the door behind him and simply looked at her. George was doing her utmost to keep her face blank, but he hadn't missed the brief look of sheer misery when he'd glanced through the spy hole before opening the door. When she didn't say a word to him, he realised that something was very different from the other two times they'd been here. He thought she looked tired, pale, and as if she really didn't care what happened to her.   
  
"Do you have an explanation for what happened this morning?" He asked quietly.   
  
"No," Was her unequivocal reply.   
  
"And are you going to purge your contempt?"   
  
"I apologize unreservedly. Will that do?"   
  
"You can't keep doing this, George."   
  
"Fine," She said bitterly. "Send me to prison for a night. You know you're itching to do it."   
  
"I'd have thought that the fact of my talking to you here instead of in court, shows that giving you a custodial is the last thing I want to do. There is, however, an interesting pattern emerging here. On the three occasions you've done this, you've had either a witness or some evidence slipping out of your grasp. I used to think it was Jo's presence that wound you up," He said, unconsciously echoing Karen's words of a while before. "but it isn't, as can be seen by today."   
  
"Spare me the psychology," Said George, her scorn covering up her fear that he would get to the truth.   
  
"But I think it's me you have the problem with."   
  
"John, please, just give me whatever punishment you're planning on giving me and let's leave it at that."   
  
"Perhaps this isn't the time or place, but we will get to the bottom of this," He said, fixing her with the type of stare that left her in no doubt that they would one day revisit her reasons for losing control in his court. "On this occasion, and on this occasion only, you are being given a warning. Do this again, and I really will lock you up. However, as a condition to your warning, you will spend the whole of Thursday shadowing Karen Betts. She came to see me on your advice, to ask for the court order which I will issue this afternoon. We talked about you," Here George couldn't help blushing. "And Karen came up with the perfect solution. On Thursday, she will, as she put it, show you the parts of Larkhall that barristers don't normally see, and explain to you what would happen if you did have to spend a night in custody. I'm not entirely convinced it'll work, but Karen seems to think that a few hours behind bars, and becoming thoroughly acquainted with the possible consequences of your actions, might just persuade you not to do it again. Is that clear?"   
  
"Crystal," Replied George icily, cursing Karen for her ingenious suggestion.   
  
"You will report to Karen Betts at ten on Thursday morning. How long she decides to keep you, is entirely up to her."   
  
"You're really enjoying this, aren't you."   
  
"It's certainly different, but where you're contempt is concerned, all ideas are gratefully received." George didn't reply, but just looked at the wall across from her. "Come here," John said softly, and after a moment's hesitation, George rose and stood before him, feeling like a naughty schoolgirl. When he gently put his arms round her, she thought that if anyone was nice to her today, she would begin crying and never be able to stop. He could feel how tense she was, and ran a hand slowly up and down her back, trying to make her relax. Eventually, she returned his hug, and stood with her cheek pressed against his firm chest.   
  
"What's got in to you?" He asked softly.   
  
"No one," She said miserably, "I think that's the point." A small smile lifted the corners of his mouth.   
  
"We all have to put up with that from time to time." She lifted her face to look up in to his.   
  
"You don't," She said scornfully, "You just go out and pick up a new bit of skirt." "Anyway, I thought you had Jo on tap these days." Knowing that this was only partially responsible for her current mood, he ignored the jibe. They simply stood there for a while, in that cold, impersonal cell, arms round each other with her leaning her face against him. She took an immeasurable amount of comfort from this, and he spent the time worrying about her. George was gradually slipping back in to the type of unpredictable behaviour he hadn't seen in her since they were married. Lifting his left arm from round her, he glanced at his watch.   
  
"We've got to go back to court," He said, gently disentangling himself from her. George lifted a hand to cover a yawn.   
  
"I could do with going to sleep, not back in to the firing line," She said, all the morning's energy clearly gone. John took her by the shoulders and scrutinized her.   
  
"You're looking thinner," He said.   
  
"Yes, thank you, I can look in a mirror," Was her scathing response. He raised his hands in mock surrender.   
  
"Hey, calm down, it was only an observation." As he let them both out of the cell, he said, "So, you will go to Larkhall on Thursday?"   
  
"I thought it was an order, not a request."   
  
"If it'll help you to behave in future, then yes, it is an order. As for the other court order, Coope will fax it to Karen later this afternoon and I think she'll go to see Michelle Dockley tomorrow."   
  
"Well, let's hope she has more success than any of us have so far." 


	88. Part Eighty Eight

Part Eighty Eight   
  
Karen was applying the final touches of her makeup and was looking intently into her bedroom mirror. She looked back at her reflected image which was confident enough to face the unknown. She saw it suddenly turn confidently to the absent Meg Richard standing next to her and making that fatal prediction.   
  
"I can see Shell going exactly the same way as Tessa Spall did……"   
  
Those words hung in the air of her very stylish bedroom as she answered herself.  
  
"But it shouldn't have happened. Last time I saw Shell, she had just had her baby and she had the one thing in her life that she would ever love and would keep her stable. In her way, she loved her two daughters who she let go for adoption by Social Services rather than grow up to be abused in the same way that she had been. She was more settled than before she escaped. "  
  
She brushed her long thick fair hair hard in anger as she recalled seeing Fenner climb up the metal flights of staircases and enter the abandoned cell, possessions scattered and caught sight of Fenner's back.  
  
"I'm, er, collecting Dockley's stuff. She's shipping out," Fenner said with that very rare and highly suspicious hesitation in his voice.  
  
"Where to?" she had asked in total shock, trying to take in what on earth had happened since Shell Dockley had so proudly given birth to her son. That feeling was so strong that it was all over G wing in such a short time.   
  
"It's an emergency admission. To a secure psychiatric hospital.Excuse me," And he brushed past her while she remained open mouthed with shock.  
  
She had never accepted for one moment the concocted story from that shifty pair of liars, Colin Hedges and Fenner that Shell had been caught at the point of holding a pillow over the baby's head. However Grayling chose to believe them. One look at his face told her that it was very expedient for Shell to be off his hands so that it would be someone else's problem and his reputation would be secure. She had had to resign herself, in the end, to being unable to get past the barrier placed in her path by Grayling even though her suspicions niggled away at the back of her mind. That is, till the chance unfolding of her own court case steered this matter into Karen's hands..  
  
Very well, she would sidestep Grayling and the Court Order placed in her hands by John Deed would be her ace in the pack that she would play to help settle two injustices in one fell swoop.  
  
She looked at the close typed blue document with grim satisfaction, typed out in the formal legal language of its kind and the scrolled heading which was duly dated and signed in John Deed's bold decisive script. This conveyed power over any official of her grade that she may have to argue with. She slipped it into a large brown envelope and into the separate front compartment of her briefcase. This was her ace in her pack if a straight professional approach received the brush off which she suspected that it would.  
  
She clattered down the flight of steps to her car in her underground car park and the automatic barriers clanked their way open to let her steer her car to the open road. At Larkhall, her absence was unnoticed as her diary contained the brief note that she was "working from home on accounts." The entry was very nearly true as it was Fenner's account that she was working on to settle for good and her definition of home was rather elastic. She knew only too well that Fenner would be delighted to temporarily lord it over the wing with Karen elsewhere and phoning up Karen was not in his scheme of things.   
  
She was happy as she always was with that feeling of freedom away from her usual routine of driving to Larkhall every day. Sometimes she felt as if the car drove her to work as she slid into automatic pilot and she woke up to see the familiar grey walls and the wooden gates inviting her in. This time she was out on the open road with her foot pressed down on the accelerator and her car cutting a direct route on a fairly quiet motorway and turning off along the narrow country lane to the Psychiatric Hospital at Ashmore. Her car twisted and turned its way until she saw the entry to her right and the ultra modern red brick pile ahead.   
  
Immediately, her mind which had idled its way with the steady rhythm of her car came very much to the present.She was resolved to be at her most persuasive first and only to brandish her court order if it was absolutely necessary. There was something about carrying a court order signed by a High Court judge that almost made her feel nervous. She felt as if she were carrying a high velocity gun in her briefcase with the power to blow away the most dangerous criminal and the sheer power of that weapon scared her as to what it was capable of. This really wasn't the Karen Betts of old who relied on her power of the spoken word and at most, sheer force of personality to get what she wanted. However the other side of her was grateful for so mighty an equaliser as she was heading blind into an unknown organisation. She suspected that her past life as a nurse would be of limited value as times had changed since she worked in a hospital and you didn't have to work with bolts and bars.  
  
"You've come to visit Shell Dockley, have you? We don't get many visitors here, not from your place." The receptionist eyed her suspiciously, focussing on her Wing Governor's badge and her credentials to prove exactly who she was. "You'd better stay in the waiting room. This is a secure hospital, after all."  
  
Every organisation has the dragon receptionist to keep off unwelcome intruders, the doctor's surgery, Sylvia at Larkhall, the hospital out patient's clinic, you name it, every place has got one. She smiled pleasantly, putting herself in the mind of the receptionist as was her habit as someone who had knowledge as to how organisations work. While she waited, she helped herself to a tattered copy of 'Woman's Own' which was preferable to 'Reader's Digest', the other old favourite of waiting rooms as she whiled away the time.  
  
"Miss Betts, can you come this way. The Chief Executive wants to see you in person about your visit."  
  
Karen strolled casually alongside the woman in her officious uniform. The familiar long antiseptic bare white corridors and the tiled floor felt familiar under her feet. Soon they came to a door with stout plate glass mesh windows. The nurse spoke into a wall intercom to identify herself and presently, the door swung gently open released electronically on a catch by the prison officer in the security booth behind the break proof glass screen. His colleague came to escort her along the next corridor and then turn sharp right. Karen found the prison officer aloof and giving off none of the easy chattiness that she was used to. The whole place was very modern but cold and controlled by invisible locks on doors and not the slam shut loud clunk from the bolt and crash of metal against the wood frames of Larkhall. This was an alien landscape which made even the crumbling ruin of Larkhall friendly because of it's antiquity.  
  
The sharp edged rectangular door was opened and Karen took in the state of the art office furniture and power dressing woman behind the desk which made both her office and herself feel down at heel in comparison. She crushed that instinct to feel inferior reminding herself that she had come up from the ranks to her present position of authority as she introduced herself in pleasant tones and explained her purpose.  
  
"By what authority do you consider you have a right to interview one of our patients, Miss Betts?" came the supercilious tones, hardly even looking at her. "We have strict rules here."  
  
"I quite understand, but Shell Dockley was once an inmate in the wing of the prison of which I am Wing Governor. A delicate matter has come up of which she is able to give first hand evidence."  
  
"Shouldn't you have given me prior notice of such a visit? My time is precious in the running of a psychiatric prison which I can ill afford in dealing with uninvited guests?"  
  
Jesus Christ, this woman is on a real power trip, Karen thought. If she had my job where anything and everything comes up at short notice, she wouldn't last the week. Never mind, keep smiling at the cow.  
  
"This has come up at short notice as I, too, have a prison wing to run. As someone on the same level of authority and similar responsibilities as myself, I hoped you would understand." Karen smiled broadly, totally ignoring the way this woman looked down her nose at her.  
  
"Well, you thought wrong, Miss Betts.I shall immediately send for a prison officer so that you can be escorted off the premises forthwith," And she reached over for the phone.  
  
"Not so fast," Karen replied with a decided edge in her voice so that she was no longer the well mannered supplicant. "I had hoped for this to be agreed the easy way but you leave me no alternative," And Karen reached forward into her briefcase for the envelope. "I had said that this is a delicate matter. I am not obliged to explain to a perfect stranger the purpose of this visit but I hold here a Court Order signed by a High Court judge empowering me to see Shell Dockley whether you like it or not. You have no choice in the matter."  
  
For the first time, the woman saw Karen Betts who was subtly changed. There was a steely tone in her voice which she had not come across before. As someone whose fussy bullying had held sway in such a closed in institution, she did not know how to deal with someone who unmasked a greater power than her own. Her job was to ensure everything appeared to run well and that the glossy yearly prospectus suitably blinded with science her remote seniors in Whitehall. The power of the law was some alien force with the ability to drag into the dock any luckless individual who broke the eleventh commandment "Thou shalt not be found out." The spectre of the Public Enquiry that the judiciary would ruthlessly probe her empire was the one distant nightmare which she resolved she would never have to face. This woman sprang out of nowhere armed with this document with the very legal power that could frighten her.  
  
"Of course, we seem to have got off to a misunderstanding….." she stammered.  
  
Haven't we just, Karen contemptuously thought.  
  
"……I shall make the necessary arrangements for you to see the person concerned…."  
  
One inmate is just like another to her, Karen's thought chorussed.   
  
"…..Do you want me to sent in an orderly with a cup of tea later?"  
  
"Thank you. I would appreciate that," smiled Karen even though her facial muscles were starting to ache.  
  
As the Chief Executive made the necessary arrangements over the phone, it crossed her mind to double check with the governor of Larkhall Prison about this dangerous woman. To do that she wanted her out of the way as soon as possible.  
  
"Miss Taylor," she said to the young nurse, spotting her namebadge just in time. "will you escort Miss Betts here to see Shell Dockley."   
  
The nurse opened her mouth in puzzlement at this most unexpected order but thought better of it than to question it. That was the way the hospital was run.  
  
Karen smiled nicely one last time and followed the very young, very serious woman along the corridor. Jesus, was I that young once, as she looked at the universal nurses uniform that she had once worn.   
  
Presently, they arrived at the wing that Shell Dockley was on and once again passed through the invisible barriers. One or two of the patients came into view, looking much like any other patient or inmate of her past and present except for the way they avoided her eye. There was something removed about them. The whole look of the place was more like a typical hospital if it weren't for the ubiquitous sealed up doors. The nurse opened one of them and a familiar face came into full view.  
  
"Miss Betts!" exclaimed Shell. "I can't believe it's you after all this time. Thought you'd given up on me, miss," She finished on a more subdued reproachful note.   
  
Karen took in Shell's appearance with one glance. She was wearing a grey track suit, much like the one she had worn at Larkhall in her more subdued moments. There was no hint of jewellery or heavy makeup and her long wavy blond hair was less brassy than it was. So far, so good. It was the secondary impression that unsettled her. In the past, she felt that there was a scheming intelligence at work however much a tentative trust had built up between the two of them. She had cried on her shoulder when her feelings   
  
normally dammed up by the wall of hard exterior, broke through. She had told her how guilty she felt that she had exposed her children to the dangers of the same sexual abuse from her mother that she had suffered from because she had dared not face it. Looking at her now, there was something not quite right about her. Her blue eyes, sometimes limpid pseudo sincere, sometimes burning with hatred were vacant. You could always tell by the eyes, Karen's nursing instinct and her self education in psychology told her.   
  
"It's good to see you, Shell." Karen's warm voice expressed the very real feelings. The barrier erected by her stabbing of Fenner had crumbled away without her noticing it allowing her to revert to the way she was. But could Shell do the same? Did she need to do so?  
  
"You mean it, miss? You're not just saying it to make me feel better?" Shell asked guilelessly. Once she had said that to Helen who cynically dismissed it as the typical deceitful Shell ploy. This time, she meant it.  
  
"I mean every word that I say. I should have come to visit you before and helped you out long before now." Karen's regretful tones were infused with startling candour. "But there's another reason why I've come to see you. I want you to help me. That is if you are willing to."  
  
Shell sat there dumbstruck, temporarily lost for words which, again was not like the old Shell whose verbal fluency never let her down nor her judgement as to how much truth she would mix in with clever lies.  
  
"You mean it, miss? How do you want me to help?"  
  
Karen reached inside her handbag for a packet of cigarettes, flipped open the packet and handed one to Shell and, while they both lit up, she gathered her thoughts.  
  
"You remember Jim Fenner, do you Shell?" she asked, to gauge just how much recall she had of the past. Beneath the fogged up exterior, a vague flash of anger registered and the corners of her mouth were dragged down.   
  
"Yeah, I remember him all right. He was the bastard who landed me in here and what took my baby off me.He's the one that you were shagging, weren't you. You needn't have wasted your time. No one really knows what Fenner's like except me."  
  
It was that anger, even if it was filtered through the mental fog of all the tranquillisers that she had been prescribed, that brought up the remnants of the old Shell personality but even the bitterness was overlain by a feeling of impotence. It was ironical to consider all the drugs that Shell had taken or dealt while she was at Larkhall but these were drugs designed to keep her in a state of foggy acquiescence.  
  
"There's something I have to tell you, Shell," Karen urged her desperately, having taken the plunge in telling her everything . "Months ago, Fenner raped me. I have come to see you to ask you, to beg you to tell me what you know of Fenner so that I can settle with him for all of us."  
  
"You beat Fenner?" Shell's face was twisted with scorn. "You ought to have let me finish him off when I had the chance. Remember the night when I stabbed him with a broken bottle."  
  
"Shell, you know that I cannot officially condone what you did that night. There has to be another way, the legal way. You know more about him than I do. That is why I am asking you for help."  
  
Suddenly, Shell's combative desire to fight evaporated. Might as well let Miss Betts do it her way. She was too tired to fight for very long. Ashmore had made her that way.  
  
"All right, Miss Betts. You ask the questions and I'll tell you the truth. I might as well," she laughed cynically. "I'm locked up here and I'll never get out. and don't you make any big promises about getting me out."  
  
"Can you tell me what happened between you, Rachel Hicks and Fenner.It's all right," as Shell shrank back with fear. "Denny Blood has told me a lot of what went on already and you won't come to any harm if you tell me your version."  
  
"There's not much to tell that you don't know already," Shell said sulkily. "Fenner got greedy and started screwing that Hicks cow soon after Stewart came to Larkhall as wing governor. He made all sorts of promises to me that he'd get her transferred out……."  
  
"Wait a moment, Shell. How did you find out about Rachel Hicks?" interrupted Karen.  
  
"Wade told me," Shell said shortly to Karen's incredulity, knowing the hostile relationship between the two women. "I was winding her up about her love life and she let that one slip out. Anyway, I beat Hicks up one day when I went into her cell and she had her lipstick on, ready for a 'hot date' so she ended up in the hospital wing. In the end I blackmailed her by threatening that something bad would happen to her daughter if she didn't do as I wanted, like get her mother to smuggle drugs in. In the end, she topped herself. Simple as that, miss."  
  
Something of the old psychotic Shell came back into life, the sheer inappropriate flatness of emotional response to horrifying events that would have made anyone else sound and feel guilty and embarrassed by what they had done. It was as if the deeds didn't belong to her.  
  
"How much did Fenner know of all this."  
  
"The bastard knew everything." Shell's bitter laugh punctuated the remark. "Don't you know him better than that? He was there just after I done Hicks over. After she killed herself, he came into my cell and told me to keep quiet about everything and it would all blow over."   
  
Karen's face tightened as, at last, she was gaining a real backstage view of the man as she had never seen before, the man whom she had lived with and had even accepted his proposal in marriage.  
  
"I lived with him for a while," Karen confessed with real embarrassment. "He even proposed marriage to me once. That was before I started finding out about him."  
  
"You poor cow," Shell looked at her with scorn.   
  
"Didn't you get conned by him the same way that I did?" Karen interposed. "I wonder if you had ever told what you knew about Fenner, he would have been sacked."  
  
"He was too useful to me," Shell shook her head at the thought which challenged her belief in her own street smartness, one quality which she had believed in. "I got sex off Fenner. He covered up for all the bad things I ever did.That's the way he's ever worked at Larkhall"  
  
"So tell me about the time he beat you up," Karen's composed voice concealed the feeling of shock and horror which put his relationship with Maxi Purvis into sharp focus.   
  
"Which time?" Shell challenged to Karen's horror. "You mean the time he rammed my face into the cell wall or the second time he kicked and punched me and you came into my cell just after he run off."  
  
"Start with the first time," Karen asked softly."  
  
"I can't remember why he done that," and a vagueness of expression crept back across Shell's face to Karen's concern. This is not like the Shell I once knew.   
  
"Anyway I started sending letters to his wife telling her the poor cow what he was doing with me, making it look as if someone else was writing them."  
  
"Who did he think was writing them?" Karen asked.  
  
"Nikki Wade of course," Shell said with a self satisfied smile.  
  
Typical Fenner, Karen thought with contempt. He lets his unreasoning hatred take him over, first for Nikki when Shell was to blame and next for Yvonne when Snowball was feeding him a load of crap. She was watching these events unfold as if they took place before her eyes up on a TV screen, including herself as she then was when she first came totally fresh to Larkhall, so sure of herself, so confident and yet knowing nothing.   
  
"Anyway, Fenner catches on to me and finds the mobile phone what I was phoning his wife on and…..you know the rest, miss. You and Stewart saw what he done to me."  
  
"So why did you retract your statement later on?" Karen asked softly.  
  
"I convinced meself that I loved him," Shell admitted with embarrassment. So did I, Karen thought with real sympathy. "I found a note in my cell from his wife telling me that I had broken up their relationship and I was the one that Fenner really loved. So I made up some sort of a story and Fenner came back. Stupid, wasn't I," Shell finished, and looked appealingly at Karen not to laugh at her.   
  
"I nearly got married to Fenner. How could I laugh at you? So who wrote the note?"  
  
"Fenner got the letter off me and told me that he'd told his wife what to write. It was all a con, miss. And I believed it. And that's the time I started going kind of funny, prancing around, dressed up like Britney Spears in that therapy class."   
  
Karen shuddered as the morning's memory leapt back to her of her talking to Meg Richards and the horrifying vision of Shell standing at the top of the staircase on the 3s with a make belief noose held round her neck and screaming. "Come on Mr Fenner. Why don't you string me up like Rachel Hicks. It's what you want, innit?" In a twisted kind of way, it all made sense. It made far more sense than Fenner's protestations to her that what he did to her 'was never rape.' She got to her feet and had a short walk round the cell and asked herself just who was mad, Shell or Fenner?  
  
"You all right, miss?" Shell asked with genuine concern for her. Normally it was the other way round.  
  
"Thank you, Shell. I'm all right. Really." Karen smiled with real affection for this strange, difficult and sometime dangerous woman. They had one strong unbreakable bond in common which had been their undoing, Fenner.   
  
"I hope you don't mind telling me what you know about your escape from Larkhall."  
  
"Fenner fixed it," Shell said promptly. "I had been winding him up after the stabbing and he wanted me out of Larkhall. You must know what he was like then. He suggested it, he got a spare key cut for the back door to the chapel and for the van so I could escape. He left me money and told me where to find the keys. It was his idea that I make up that diary so Stewart would get the blame………"  
  
'I can't help feeling that I'm being set up…..'echoed Helen's voice in Karen's mind to the memory of her scorn and derision at Helen's paranoia. Helen was on the right track about that one as well and she was wrong yet again. And who was standing next to them while the two of them argued, knowing everything and saying nothing?  
  
"………it was dead easy. Everything would've went right if only that dozy driver hadn't got in the way and the van broke down after I bumped his car…"  
  
Just then, there was a knock on the cell door. Karen shushed at Shell to keep quiet as if they were locked up together in the cell and the prison warder was coming to spy on them. However, it was the orderly with the tea trolley. Karen got up and fetched two mugs of tea off the trolley and offered one to Shell. She smiled freely and openly as this was the first time in her life that a screw had fetched her a drink in her life, the same screw who was the one person who treated her with genuine kindness.  
  
"I'll tell you, miss, about the night that I stabbed him if you want," Shell offered, eager to please the one woman from a better time in her past than she was enjoying now. Somehow, she felt nostalgic about her days at Larkhall where she sensed that she was more free, less doped up than she was now. At least the drugs she took then were her own choice.  
  
"I wasn't going to ask you, Shell but tell me what happened."  
  
"I was serving drinks with Atkins and the Julies at Bodybag's party, remember. We slipped an 'E' into Bodybag's drink and were laughing at her as she was doing the hokey cokey," Shell explained, her voice and manner becoming sharper and clearer as the memories came flooding back and grinning at the memory. Karen's answering thought was that that's another one I didn't know about.   
  
"Everything changed when Atkins told me that you were shagging Fenner. I could tell by the way that you two were next to each other," Shell went on, glaring into the mid distance, away from Karen. "Right near the end, I got one of the empties, took it into a quiet room and smashed the bottle. It was as easy as anything in the dark when Fenner escorted us back to our cells. Fenner came sneaking round later on and it was obvious what he was after. 'You're a whore, Dockley,' he told me once and he liked whores and that's a fact, that's what he wanted what he couldn't get off his wife."  
  
Karen felt sick at this point. She dared not tell Shell that she was distinctly hostile to Fenner that night and was giving him the brush off. How could she tell Shell that that night, she had got it all wrong. This was not the Jim Fenner that she had known when she lived with him but this was Fenner, the man who had raped her, who did not know the meaning of the words that she had said that night, over and over, that she didn't want it. Why should he know any different from the women who had never said no to him in the past, the women whom he had had power over, especially when he had got his boundaries confused? If she had married Fenner, he would have cheated on her the same way he had done with Marilyn.   
  
"He thought I was going down on him when I rammed the broken bottle into him for everything he had done bad to me in the past. I wanted to see him die slowly and to beg for mercy and to confess in writing what he had done. I would have done it if it weren't for you and Stewart poking your noses in. You shouldn't have done that, miss. He didn't deserve to live and you know it."  
  
Karen was silent. Everything Shell had said convicted herself of deeds that were not only illegal but bad. Yet she understood why she had acted, better than she had known before.  
  
"One last thing I was going to ask you, Shell, is how on earth did you end up here?" Karen asked gently. She jumped to the conclusion, clear as day, that Fenner had gone to Shell once he realised that he wasn't getting any sex off her. This was the one vital fact not in Helen's report into the stabbing that immediately made sense of everything.  
  
Shell dissolved into floods of tears on Karen's shoulder. All the talk of all her misfortunes brought everything back to her and she felt all the pain despite all the drugs. She stayed there while Karen shush shushed into her ear and patted her shoulder. This was the sort of mothering Shell ought to have had years ago. She blew her nose loudly into a tissue and resolved to tell the last bad thing that had happened to her since she'd started taking the pills that numbed her and stopped her feeling anything at all. At least that worked for all normal patients.  
  
"Fenner fixed it like he fixes everything. Soon as I came back to Larkhall, I was doing hand jobs for the screws and he was getting a rake off. I was saving up for my little boy, Ronan……or whatever they've called him now. One of the worst was Colin Hedges." Shell scowled as she fell silent. "I was in my cell tucking little Ronan in when he came round, unzipping his flies. I screamed at him not to do that in front of a little boy but he wouldn't listen……" and the last three words whirled their way out of Karen's past which she had said that to the sympathetic policewoman, the night she had taken the fateful decision to go round to Fenner's B and B.  
  
"……the baby was screaming while Hedges was trying to drag me off my baby, as if he needed protection from me. Next thing I know is that Fenner comes through the door and fixes up these lies about me harming my baby and I get dragged away to this place. I know that I have done bad things in my time but I would never have harmed my baby. You must believe me."  
  
Karen was speechless as the horror and enormity of what had happened to her at Fenner's hands was taking its time to sink in. What made it worse was that for so much of the story, Karen was either totally unaware or at best suspicious.   
  
"Of course I believe you but you should never have put your trust in Fenner but come to either me or Helen Stewart."  
  
"Neither should you, miss," Shell said simply.  
  
What could she say to that as both women fell silent, both mulling over all the bad memories of the past.  
  
"I left a big wad of notes in my cell that I had saved up for my baby. Do you know what happened to it?"  
  
The flash of anger on Karen's face as she realised now what Fenner was up to in Shell's cell said everything.  
  
"He took it all, didn't he." Shell said while Karen nodded, her anger now swelling in her that, yet again, Fenner had been up to no good under her very nose.   
  
"How much cash did he walk away with?" Asked Karen, an idea forming in her head.   
  
"About two hundred quid. The bastard. I could have got Ronan some decent clothes with that money." Then, after a short silence, "You're really going to do something about Fenner?" Shell asked, the question half rhetorical, wanting to be convinced.  
  
"I know just how dangerous Fenner is, and I'm going after him for what he's done to me, to you and to others. I'll promise you this one."   
  
"You have got to get me out of this place, miss. I shouldn't be here……and I'm sorry for some of the things I done," Shell's voice and eyes pleaded with Karen.  
  
What could she say? Strangely enough, she believed Shell's remorse as Helen might have done if she had seen her at this moment. It was not her practice to promise something she couldn't deliver and, without the Court order, she would not have got this far. She was sure of nothing else than that she was going to have her hands full in bringing Fenner down.   
  
"If I ever can, I will, Shell. But it won't be easy."  
  
"So there's hope, yeah?" Shell asked.  
  
"That's the best I can do, Shell," Karen replied, feeling inadequate that she could not move mountains.  
  
The smile that Shell gave her just before she turned her back somehow upset her that she would be out while Shell was stuck there for the foreseeable future. There were no promises of happy endings, not in shell's case where her whole life was anything but.  
  
At least she had made her peace with the past in the same way that she had done with Helen and, who knows, but the ghosts might be laid to rest. 


	89. Part Eighty Nine

Part Eighty Nine   
  
On the Tuesday evening, George was lying in her bath, with her feet propped up on the end, her nail varnish drying. She'd removed every conceivable hair from her beautiful body, and was giving the conditioner in her hair time to work its magic. For ten minutes, therefore, she had time to really think about what she was doing, and what she hopefully would be doing by the end of this evening. She hadn't arrived at this decision lightly. Persuading John to make love to her after all these years wasn't going to be an easy task. but not for nothing had she taken up law, persuasion was a major player in her art after all. She just prayed that he wouldn't for once in his life play hard to get. She needed what he could give her, more than she liked to admit. Ever since that final, awful fight with Neil, she'd made herself numb, cut herself off completely from the feelings that even now she could feel closing in on her. As she reached for her glass of red wine, she was also forced to admit that her old habbit was making itself known to her again. George hadn't felt this unstable for a long time. She was drifting, wholly uninterested in her own life expectancy, and utterly devoid of enthusiasm for anything and everything. Climbing out of the bath a while later, she wasn't all that surprised to see that the bottle she'd started earlier was empty. She knew that she shouldn't really drive after drinking so much, but this was one time that Georgia Channing QC was going to take a risk or two.   
  
John was sitting in his lodgings, listening to the rain pounding the windows and the autumn wind howl down the chimney. A fire crackled in the hearth, transforming the room in to a cosy, inviting place he had no desire to leave. He had various law books spread out around his chair and was doing some in-depth reading for a ruling he had in the morning. He took a sip of the whisky that was near to hand, and reflected that there was certainly something to be said for a quiet life on occasions. He was immersed in the trial transcript from a complex case from 1998 , when there was a knock on his door. Bidding the caller to enter, he put the book down, making sure to mark his place.   
  
"Mrs. Channing, My Lord," Said the man who had been surprised to see Deed's ex at this time of night. John stood up as George came in and they exchanged their usual peck on the cheek. A few spots of rain were clinging to her hair, and her coat was damp as she draped it over one of the chairs surrounding his dining table.   
  
"To what do I owe the pleasure, George?" John asked as she took the armchair opposite his. George seemed surprisingly quiet this evening, but he was enchanted to see her in the little black, very low-cut dress she'd worn for Legover's last party.   
  
"I wondered if you were at a loose end," She said, the half truth evident in her voice. John gestured to the books scattered over the floor.   
  
"As you can see, no I'm not. Why?"   
  
"I felt like some company," Replied George, her confidence in her handling of the situation slipping further every moment but not willing to back out now. John's eyes ran experimentally over her entire form, from her expertly made up face, over the red-painted lips, and down over the curves which were currently displayed to perfection.   
  
"Dressed as you are," He said conversationally, "I'll make an assumption as to what sort of company, though I must admit to being slightly mystified as to why you should come looking to me for that after all these years." This was her biggest stumbling block, the one area of her strategy she hadn't been able to fully work out in advance.   
  
"Does there need to be a reason?" She asked.   
  
"Well, unless it's a good one," He said, "The answer's no. "My life is complicated enough without adding to it." George was surprised, but didn't let it show.   
  
"Oh, don't give me that," She said, slightly scornfully, "When did Mr. Justice Deed ever say no to a decent screw." Examining her face more critically, he caught sight of the slight squint in her eyes, the only visible sign that she'd consumed a large amount of alcohol.   
  
"Have you been drinking?" He asked.   
  
"Why?"   
  
"Because you only ever talk like that when you're drunk."   
  
"Like you said, it's been a long time and I needed some Dutch courage." Slightly questioning his sanity, John said,   
  
"come here," And when she approached his chair, he pulled her gently down to perch on his knee. Then, with his arms round her, he said,   
  
"Now, you tell me what this is all about and maybe, just maybe I will consider your request."   
  
"We're not in court, John."   
  
"That was always one of your fantasies, wasn't it?" George blushed scarlet.   
  
"No, not for a long time!"   
  
"Funny, because I don't believe you." Realising she was being goaded, George attempted to beat him at his own game.   
  
"At least I wasn't the one who actually suggested putting that in to practice." He laughed at the memory.   
  
"Touché. Now, tell me why you came here tonight." George's gaze swiveled away from him and focused on the fire. The flames danced over the apple logs giving the whole room a rich, rosy glow.   
  
"I've forgotten how to feel," She said after a moment's contemplation.   
  
"Ah," Was his only response. "And you think making love is the answer?"   
  
"Anything's worth a try," She said, her mask of indifference slightly slipping to reveal the desperate soul underneath, attempting to cling on to what it knew best.   
  
"Oh, George," He said softly, his arms tightening round her.   
  
"Don't feel sorry for me," She said, knowing that if he was any nicer to her she just might crack altogether. "Just don't do it." Feeling the full force of her need to return to surer ground, yet knowing that doing this might make the situation worse, he said,   
  
"This isn't a good idea, George." Falling back on the last piece of evidence no court could deny, she laid a hand provocatively over the growing bulge in his trousers.   
  
"I don't think your body agrees with you," She said, a smirk playing across those full, red lips that just begged to be kissed. John had been trying to ignore the effect George's close proximity was having on him, but the feel of her in his arms and the erotic aroma of Georgio, she'd never worn any other perfume, was too much for his self-control to stand. Picking up her hand from where it lay so familiarly, he said,   
  
"Who am I to deny the wishes of a lady."   
  
"My thoughts entirely," Said George, leaning down to kiss him. At the first touch of lips, a spark was lit deep inside him. There wasn't anything he didn't know about the body of this beautiful woman, no secret she could hide from him. As he encountered one of her breasts, which fit so perfectly in to the palm of his hand, he still had a small, nagging doubt about what they were doing.   
  
"Are you absolutely sure you want this?" He asked between kisses. In answer, she tugged the chignion from her hair so that it cascaded over her shoulders, the way he'd always preferred it. At this affirmation of what they were agreeing to, they stood up as one and moved towards the stairs, hands and mouths still wandering at will. John tugged at the zip at the back of her dress, and when George stepped out of it, he threw it over the nearest dining chair. As he looked her up and down in the firelight, he was gratified to see a simple black lace bra and the tiniest pair of black panties he thought he'd ever had the pleasure to meet.   
  
"Now I know why you took that dispute over lingerie case," Said George, noting his appraisal of her.   
  
"As the defending barrister," He said silkily. "You really ought to have taken part in the display." As they moved up the stairs, her hand moved to unbuckle his belt. When they reached the top, he unsnapped her bra and casually flung it over the post at the top of the stairs.   
  
When they lay in his large bed, their hands and mouths were everywhere, reacquainting themselves with each other's bodies. There was a furious quality about what they were doing. There would be no lingering, seductive courting of the senses, but a rapid spiral of passion ignited still further by every touch. They were almost brutal in their ferocious battle to make the other succumb first.   
  
"Still like the fight, I see," Said John, his voice deeper with lust.   
  
"Don't you remember?" Drawled George. "The fight was always a kind of foreplay. The bigger the fight, the better the post-fight screw."   
  
"And didn't you get enough of either from Lover Boy?"   
  
"Only a perfunctory interest on both counts."   
  
"So that's why you became so vindictive when he appeared on the scene," Said John, lightly nibbling at one of her nipples. "A serious case of sexual frustration."   
  
"Oh, and you think you could have been the perfect cure, do you?"   
  
"Weighing up all the evidence," Said John conversationally, his hand inching downwards, "that being that you came here tonight virtually begging me to make love to you, and that you are now in my bed, I'd say that there couldn't possibly be even a reasonable doubt." As if to support his assertion, he slipped two fingers inside her and grazed her nipple with his teeth, the way she'd often liked it when in one of her sporadic moods of half anger half moroseness. But George soon realised that she was far too tense to really enjoy this. But after all her bravado and persuasion, she wasn't going to back out now. She would just have to hope her old trick would work on John. It had often worked on Neil, because Neil wouldn't know how to excite a woman even if he'd sat through a cabinet meeting on the subject. But would John fall for it, she didn't know.   
  
Even after she'd persuaded him between her legs and encouraged him deep inside her, she still fought him all the way. It was the only way she could disguise her body's clear lack of response to everything she used to enjoy so much from him. Never before had George had to fake it with John, but this time it was a must. She couldn't let him see what a complete wreck she was these days.   
  
"Stop fighting me," He said as he moved inside her. In answer to this, she wrapped her arms and legs round him, as if to keep her from sliding beneath the dull, gray waters of despair. He could feel an alien energy in her, a desperate calling for some kind of fulfillment, maybe even a return to normality.   
  
Afterwards, as they lay slightly apart, George felt deflated. She was utterly ashamed of herself, first for coming here and propositioning John so blatantly, and second for not enjoying what he'd given her. Hoping he would do the same so as to spare her from having to talk, she turned on her side with her back to him and pulled the duvet over her.   
  
"Tell me why you faked it." His words came out of the darkness and hit her like a slap in the face. She became utterly still.   
  
"I didn't," She replied, but knowing she'd hesitated far too long.   
  
"that may have worked on Lover Boy, but I have far too good a memory of your body's reactions for it to work on me."   
  
"People change, John," Said George quietly, still with her back to him.   
  
"Why not turn over and tell me that with conviction." He was goading her in to talking to him, and afterwards she cursed herself for falling for it.   
  
"Why do you always make me feel so small?" She said, turning over to face him, the anger and mortification clear in both her voice and face.   
  
"I don't do it intentionally," he replied, trying to plicate her.   
  
"Sometimes I just hate not being able to hide anything from you."   
  
"George, talk to me. What was tonight really about?"   
  
"When Neil gave me the biggest shock of my life, cutting myself off from anything I felt was the only way to deal with it. Anger and hurt weren't things I needed or even wanted to acknowledge. That bloody trial really did something to me. I've defended some pretty dubious people in my time, but they were by far the worst." George yawned, suddenly feeling tired and vulnerable. John put his arms round her, seeming to sense her need for a post-coital cuddle, not something she had received from Neil for far too long.   
  
"Sometimes I think that's why he took up with me in the first place," Said George, drowsiness both from the sex and the alcohol she'd consumed earlier creeping in to her voice. "Every time an awkward case came up that the government wanted fixed, he volunteered my services. When Brian Cantwell backed out after only two days, Neil was asked if I would perform. It only took one look at the evidence to know they were as guilty as hell."   
  
"So why keep doing it?"   
  
"It was work, and for all his faults he was company of sorts."   
  
"You really didn't expect him to turn violent, did you."   
  
"No, it totally threw me."   
  
"So, you thought that figuratively running away was the best solution." George laughed softly.   
  
"So says the man whose best defence has always been to walk away."   
  
"Sometimes it's preferable to unwanted complications."   
  
"Oh, like having to stay around long enough to form something resembling a relationship."   
  
"Hey, we're supposed to be talking about you here, not me."   
  
"Once you've run away from something, it's hard to go back."   
  
"Start talking in the first person and we might get somewhere." George sat up in total irritation, for the moment forgetting that she wasn't wearing anything, so giving John a perfect display of her assets.   
  
"Do I have to spell it out for you?" She said in disgust. "When Neil took away every shred of pride and self-esteem I had, it was the easiest thing in the world to stop feeling, to cut myself off from every frightening hurtful thing. You know me better than anyone, and you know that feelings of any kind aren't something I do in vast quantities. Only it never quite works like that does it, because it's impossible to turn off something that persists in eating away at you night and day. I feel so flat, I've got absolutely no mental energy and I've forgotten what it's like to feel good about something." Finally running out of steam, George lay back down.   
  
"I thought as much," John said, knowing that his close proximity to her small but heavy breasts, which had jiggled slightly during her tirade would forever be one of his fondest memories. "But I wanted you to say it."   
  
"I can't stand the way you always do this. You manage to see straight through me, I can't hide one little thing from you."   
  
"It's not my fault you wear your heart on your sleeve, George."   
  
"Don't you get it," Said George, the old bitterness returning to her voice. "I'm drifting quite enough as it is at the moment, and your doing this therapy routine on me makes me feel like I've lost control even more." John put his arms round her, gently running a hand up and down her back in an attempt to calm her down.   
  
"I didn't realise this had got to you so much," John said gently.   
  
"I didn't want you too," Said George miserably, her head laid on his chest. John ran his fingers through her hair. Deciding that George was showing all the signs of clinical depression, but knowing that it was more than his life was worth to voice the thought, he simply held her as she gradually fell asleep.   
  
Waking in the early morning, George lay mulling over everything she'd said last night. She loathed herself for having revealed so much of the situation to John. She knew she was close to cracking up altogether, and she thought he could probably see it too. She watched Mimi, who had crept upstairs probably once the fire had gone out, and who was now sleeping soundly on the end of the bed. Allowing her senses to slowly re-enter the land of the living, George's eyes leisurely wandered round the room. When her gaze reached the table on her side of the bed, she became fully alert. Standing there, staring back at her with what, in her half awake state George perceived as disgust and mockery, was a beautifully framed picture of Jo. George reached out a hand and picked up the photograph, bringing it closer to her ever widening eyes. It was clearly of a much younger Jo. Her hair was longer, half way down her back, and she was sat under the shade of an enormous oak tree. George couldn't work out where it had been taken, but it really was beautiful. Even to George's critical eyes, Jo looked stunning. A wave of guilt swept over George as she stared at this photo of the woman John had always loved. She hadn't once thought of Jo last night, and she doubted John had either. Jo had been really good to her recently, really tried to bury the hatchet, especially after what had happened with Neil. How could she have done this to someone who, after all these years of mutual sniping, was actually ready to forget their differences at a time when George had needed someone to listen. George would never admit it to anyone, but ever since she'd known of Jo's existence, she'd always half envied her. Firstly, Jo had been the woman whom John clearly loved over any other, including her. Secondly, Jo had almost always been calm and collected, which always showed George up for being the one who could never control her tongue. But the one thing that had always eaten away at George, was the fact that Jo had always been the perfect mother. Even though Jo had lost her husband to cancer when her two children were very young, she'd coped, and not just by keeping things on an even keel. Jo had brought up her two children not only single handed but successfully. Whereas she, George, the one who wouldn't actually have had to work for a living if she hadn't wanted too, hadn't even managed to look after her daughter full time. If she was honest with herself, John had always been a far better parent than she ever had. Leaving the photograph on top of the duvet, George slipped silently out of bed, hushing a softly stirring Mimi, and put on her clothes.   
  
"George?" Mumbled John. Ignoring him, George swiftly put on her bra and went downstairs to find her dress and shoes. Half way down the stairs, George turned round to look up at him as he got out of bed to follow her.   
  
"Where are you going?" He asked in the midst of a yawn. Instead of directly answering him, George asked,   
  
"Did you even once think about Jo last night?" Looking slightly mystified, John said,   
  
"No, but neither did you."   
  
"I know," Said George, and the solemn edge of guilt was there for anyone to hear. George turned and walked the rest of the way downstairs and plucked her dress off the back of the chair where John had draped it in the midst of last night's heated passion. Pulling on yesterday's pair of discarded trousers, he followed her.   
  
"What made you think about Jo of all people?" John asked when he appeared in the lounge. George located her shoes and shoved her feet in to them.   
  
"I didn't realise till this morning that we had an audience in the form of her picture."   
  
"Guilt isn't usually one of your vices, George."   
  
"Well, maybe it's about time it was." George picked up her coat and walked out of the door without a backwards glance. Wondering just who this woman was who was suddenly feeling guilty for doing something wrong to someone else after all these years, John walked to the window and watched her move out from under the porch and towards her car. As she roared away and John went upstairs to take a shower, he wondered just what was happening to George. She was incredibly mixed up and he really didn't know the best way to help her. He just prayed that she wasn't about to do what she'd done after Charlie was born. 


	90. Part Ninety

Part Ninety   
  
On the Wednesday afternoon, Karen had done her usual rounds of the wing, and was in her office attempting to assemble September's rate of admissions for the monthly assessment of the rise or hopeful decrease in prison population. It was the first of October, and the yard girls were spending their time sweeping up the fallen leaves of the onset of autumn. But her mind just wasn't on the job today. Ever since she'd left Ashmore yesterday, her thoughts had been with Shell. Little Ronan was the one and only thing that Shell had ever shown a sign of really caring about, and he'd been snatched from her just to keep Fenner and Hedges in a job. Her anger came within degrees of boiling over every time she came in to contact with either of them. She'd kept out of Fenner's way today purely so that she wouldn't subject him to her wrath and so give the game away about where she'd really been yesterday. But she couldn't go on doing that much longer. He was the principal officer on her wing, and deal with him she must. But she would have something to distract her tomorrow. It had been a flash of sheer inspiration that had made her suggest imposing an order of visitation to Larkhall on George, rather than the career-wrecking course of action that John would otherwise have been forced to consider. She briefly grinned to herself when she thought of what reaction George must have had to such news. When Karen had visited George last week, her overall impression was that although George was clearly going through some sort of crisis in her personal life, her professional persona was one of total security. George knew her job and felt utterly in control in her plush, expensive surroundings. But faced with spending a few hours unofficially at Her Majesty's pleasure, she knew that George wouldn't be looking forward to it to say the least. For once, it would be Karen in control, operating on her own territory and George's safety more than anything would be in Karen's hands.   
  
Knowing that with so many conflicting thoughts whizzing round and round in her head that she wouldn't get any more work done that afternoon, Karen switched off her computer and telling her secretary to contact her only if absolutely necessary, she walked out to her car. She hadn't seen Yvonne since the weekend, and thought that a decent hug might just sort her out. She drove the now very familiar route to Yvonne's house, only to see her locking the front door and walking towards the Jag when she turned in to Yvonne's driveway. Yvonne turned and smiled as Karen got out of her car.   
  
"This is a nice surprise," She said, moving towards Karen and kissing her. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"   
  
"Are you on your way out?"   
  
"Yeah, Cassie and Roisin have got to work late, so I said I'd pick Michael and Niamh up from school. Come with me if you like." As Karen locked her car and joined Yvonne in the Jag, she said,   
  
"I wasn't achieving anything useful, and you are far too stunning an incentive for me to skive." Yvonne laughed.   
  
"Don't let Grayling hear you say that."   
  
"He'll have enough to slap my wrist about when he finds out I went to see Dockley yesterday."   
  
"Yeah, but if you'd told him, Fenner would already have a barrister at his disposal, probably paid for by area management." Karen was briefly reminded of the little argument she'd had with Yvonne on the subject of both Jo's and George's fees. One of the things that had almost persuaded Karen against going ahead with her case, was the fact that barrister's fees just weren't something she could afford on even a wing governor's wage. She might have scraped Jo's together, but George being a civil lawyer naturally charged a lot more which would have financially crippled Karen without a second's thought. It took Yvonne a substantial amount of persuasion to get Karen to accept that where this case was concerned, what Karen couldn't afford, Yvonne certainly could. Yvonne pointed out that before her time in Larkhall, she'd have happily illiminated someone like Fenner at the drop of a hat, so why not try it the legal way for a change. After all, hitmen and top barristers did charge similar fees these days. This comparison had made Karen smile, and she had finally accepted Yvonne's help on this.   
  
"I paid some money in to Shell's personal spends today," Karen said after a while.   
  
"I didn't know they had personal spends in a place like Ashmore."   
  
"Oh yeah, for cigarettes and phone cards and everything else the way prison does."   
  
"I guess Dockley doesn't get much help that way."   
  
"That wasn't why I did it. You remember I told you about Fenner's little prostitution racket when I rang you last night? Well, when she was transferred to Ashmore, Fenner cleared out all her possessions but pocketed about two hundred pounds that she'd been saving for her baby. He did it under my very nose and even then, even after everything else, I didn't question the shifty look he had on his face." Yvonne took a hand off the wheel and took hold of one of Karen's.   
  
"You are not responsible for Fenner's light, little fingers."   
  
"I know, but if I'd questioned what he was up too more at the time, maybe Shell wouldn't still be where she is now."   
  
"There's a little self-destructive pattern emerging here," Said Yvonne, slowing at a red light. "Ever since you decided to go ahead with taking Fenner to the cleaners, you seem to have made it your mission to put right every single one of his mistakes, when in actual fact, that is purely and solely for him to do, not you."   
  
"Maybe I'm just trying to put right my part in them."   
  
"I know that, but I think you're seriously overestimating your guilt in Fenner's crimes. He did those things Karen, him, not you. Please will you start believing that."   
  
"Nothing like the odd home truth to brighten up the day," Said Karen drily, but knowing Yvonne was right.   
  
"You wouldn't want me to be any different would you."   
  
"No, not in the slightest. That's one thing that you and George Channing have got in common. You're both determined not to beat around the bush with me, and I like it."   
  
"You've got that fiery little wild card coming to Larkhall tomorrow, haven't you."   
  
"Yeah, I wonder what she'll make of life behind bars, however unofficial and temporary that may be."   
  
"Just keep her out of Al's way. You don't want another death on that wing." Realising Yvonne was being utterly serious, Karen said,   
  
"I'll make it clear to Fenner tomorrow morning to keep McKenzy out of the way. I don't think she'd take too kindly to seeing Snowball's barrister on her territory."   
  
They pulled in to the school carpark and got out to stand with all the other waiting adults.   
  
"It feels odd doing this again," Observed Karen.   
  
"I do it quite often when neither Cassie nor Roisin can," replied Yvonne. There came a surge of children ranging from age five to eleven, all crowding out of the front doors. A seven-year-old girl detached herself from the group and ran towards them.   
  
"Auntie Yvonne," She called, clearly pleased to see her mother's substitute. Niamh ran straight in to Yvonne's outstretched arms and hugged her. Yvonne seemed to take great pleasure in holding the small body to her for a moment.   
  
"Where's Michael?" Asked Yvonne.   
  
"He's just getting his football boots," Said Niamh. A few minutes later they saw Roisin's ten-year-old son strolling nonchalantly towards them, a blue duffel bag clutched in his hand.   
  
"Hi Yvonne," He said, coming up to them.   
  
"He says it's not cool to call you auntie anymore," Said Niamh confidentially. Yvonne laughed and Kar 


	91. Part Ninety One

Part Ninety One   
  
On the Thursday morning, Karen felt slightly lighter of heart than she had done in recent weeks. Shell's evidence had to count for something, and today wasn't going to be any ordinary day. Karen was looking forward to George's visit, she was interested to see George's reactions to the normal running of a prison, and to being told what would happen to her if she were ever stupid enough to question John's authority in his own court again. Only one thing remained to be done before George arrived. Picking up the phone, Karen rang down to the officers' room. As she'd hoped, Fenner answered.   
  
"You know that I've got George Channing coming in today," Said Karen.   
  
"So you said," Replied Fenner, "but I still don't see why."   
  
"All you need to know is that the firm she works for is getting its lawyers to spend a day in one of Her Majesty's prisons, in order to get some idea of the conditions their clients may eventually face." Karen didn't enlighten Fenner as to the fact that George's firm only dealt in civil law. That was after all only a detail. "When I bring her down on to the wing," continued Karen, "I need you to keep Alison McKenzy out of the way. She's the only one who knows that Ms Channing was Merriman's barrister. We hardly need a riot on our hands, now do we."   
  
"Okay, leave it to me," Was Fenner's response. Hoping that he could for once do something right, Karen put the phone down.   
  
When George pulled in to the carpark, she was relieved to see Karen waiting for her. She didn't want to have to wait around in this drab, dreary dump longer than necessary. Karen was stood talking to Ken at the gate lodge and George walked over to them.   
  
"I'm not sure whether to thank you or curse you," Said George, opening the conversation. Karen laughed.   
  
"Well, I couldn't exactly let him convict you, now could I."   
  
"Well, thank you for that at least." Karen handed George a visitor's pass which she'd already had made out for her.   
  
"You'll have to hand in your mobile and have your handbag searched," Said Karen. Making sure the phone was switched off, George handed it and her handbag over to Ken. He rifled through the bag's contents, and removed a packet of Ibuprofen which George routinely kept on her.   
  
"I'll have to keep hold of this, Miss," He said to George. "No drugs allowed inside the prison." He put the tablets in to an envelope with her mobile and wrote her name on it. "Just ask for them on your way out." Heartily glad that she would be on her way out at the end of the day, George took her bag back from him and followed Karen through the first set of gates. As they clanged to behind them and as Karen turned the key, George felt an inexplicable urge to flee. Karen must have seen something of this in her face because she said,   
  
"You'll get used to it." As they traversed the dull, narrow corridors, and moved deeper inside the prison, George felt she could easily get lost in here and vowed not to let Karen out of her sight. It gave her the vague impression of walking through the arteries and veins of some enormous being, all its components working either with or against each other. They walked up some stairs, and along a few more corridors, until they reached Karen's office.   
  
"It's not much compared to yours," Said Karen, suddenly feeling self-conscious at her very humble work space.   
  
"Prosecuting and defending companies does tend to allow one a certain amount of luxury," Commented George. After asking her secretary to bring them some coffee, Karen sat behind the familiar barrier of her desk and George took a chair across from her.   
  
"So, tell me why you're here," Prompted Karen, lighting a cigarette and holding the packet out to George who gratefully helped herself.   
  
"I got in to an argument with John, and he didn't like it." George felt an odd sense of the goalposts having been somewhat adjusted. Just under a week ago, it had been her asking the questions, and now here she was, submitting to Karen's probing without a second thought.   
  
"You do know that this is the last time he's prepared to be lenient with you?"   
  
"Yes, I do. He made that perfectly clear. I bet you're enjoying this, aren't you?" George couldn't help asking with a slight grin. Karen's smile matched hers.   
  
"It's certainly interesting. The story is that the firm you work for has decided to make its barristers find out what conditions their clients might end up facing."   
  
"But I don't usually do criminal work."   
  
"No, but Fenner doesn't know that, and it's him I had to convince." A thoughtful look crossed George's face.   
  
"This will give me the perfect opportunity to observe you and him in your normal working environment. When people are on their own territory, their guard is usually somewhat down and they are prone to give away vital signs of their true personality." Karen laughed mirthlessly.   
  
"Fenner doesn't, trust me."   
  
"Not to you, he wouldn't, because you're used to seeing him every day. But it's always useful to see the person about to be prosecuted, on his own turf."   
  
"Jo did, briefly anyway. He certainly went away from that encounter with his tail between his legs."   
  
"Then, I must under no circumstances waste the opportunity to make him do the same," Replied George, an evil little smile touching her lips.   
  
"The plan is," Said Karen, trying to steer the conversation away from Fenner for the moment, "that I'll show you where the inmates first come in, give you their initial impression of prison, and explain to you exactly what happens to any new inmate, no matter what their crime. After that, I'll take you down to my wing, and introduce you to a few of our long-term stayers, and don't worry, I've given orders for Alison McKenzy to be kept out of harm's way. One thing I intend to get through to you," She said, fixing George with a hard stare, "Is that not all criminals are your average drug addict tart raised in the gutter. Most people who commit crime have a, to them, very logical reason for doing it. That doesn't mean we can condone what they've done, but it does enable us to treat them as human beings. I can't pretend you won't see and hear things that might shock you, because you will. I make no apology for that because in order for you to quit winding your ex up in court, you need to see an unvarnished picture of what you would face if you did it again."   
  
"Consider me suitably chastened," Replied George.   
  
"I'm sorry," Said Karen, grinning sheepishly. "When I'm behind this desk, I slip in to full wing governor mode, no matter who's sitting opposite me."   
  
"It suits you," George found herself saying.   
  
"Helen Stewart was exactly the same. I watched her interrogate Shell Dockley."   
  
A while later as they walked down to the reception wing, George was incredibly conscious of the fact that Karen was carrying the keys, and was in fact her only assured way out of this place. Karen moved familiarly throughout this alien environment, utterly sure of herself and her job. George thought it made a pleasant change to see Karen so confident, as on the other two occasions when George had had sustained contact with Karen, had been during their meeting about the rape case and across a court room. Karen let them through the last set of gates, and they moved to stand just inside the room where all inmates were initially received. George could see out of one of the barred windows, to the blacked-out van that had clearly transported the now waiting group of mostly young women. A dumpy, very unattractive woman was stood behind a desk, filling in forms and rifling through any possessions the inmates had brought with them. Karen and George simply stood, no explanation necessary to watch the scene unfold. A girl in her late teens was one of the first to move up to the desk.   
  
"Dawn Jenkins," Said the woman behind the desk, in a brash, northern accent. "Are you here again?"   
  
"Yes, Miss," Dawn replied.   
  
"What for?" Said Sylvia looking at the paperwork accompanying Dawn on her most recent visit to Larkhall. "Shop lifting. You've got to learn not to take things that don't belong to you." Sylvia exchanged a knowing glance with the van driver. "Got a screw loose, that one," She said, gesturing to where Dawn was signing the forms, clearly very familiar with the procedure.   
  
"She's one of our habitual offenders," Said Karen quietly. George gestured to where Sylvia was going through Dawn's belongings.   
  
"Is she really a prison officer?" She said in utter amazement. Karen flashed her a quick smile.   
  
"You wouldn't think so, would you. But yes, as Sylvia would be only too happy to tell you, she's been in the service for over twelve years. Every inmate comes through here, has their possessions gone through to remove anything prohibited such as anything made of glass, which is only returned to them on release. They're then photographed and strip-searched." George looked aghast.   
  
"You must be joking!" She said in a quiet, but nevertheless outraged tone. "Even for contempt of court?"   
  
"Yes," Replied Karen, "Even for contempt of court. Every new inmate is initially treated in exactly the same way, no matter their crime. The officers aren't allowed to touch you, and a strip search would always be done by a female officer." George recoiled at the clear, unequivocal description. "Some, like Sylvia, also wouldn't take kindly to that incredibly posh drawl of yours. The more refined a new inmate sounds, the more Sylvia gives them hell."   
  
"That's no surprise," Said George scornfully. As Sylvia finished with the group of inmates, they all moved passed Karen and George, towards the area where searching and photos took place. Observing Karen's presence, Sylvia stopped and said,   
  
"Only a few in today. That Dawn's back again."   
  
"Yes, so I see," Replied Karen. Then, as Sylvia's gaze moved to George, Karen said,   
  
"This is Ms Channing, a barrister spending a day with me for research purposes." Sylvia looked George up and down.   
  
"Your sort wouldn't last five minutes in this place," She said dismissively. Karen was about to make some response to this, but George got there before her.   
  
"One hopes that one's first impression of a person doesn't actually show who they really are." Suitably beaten, Sylvia turned and walked away.   
  
"If you were an inmate," Said Karen, with a broad smile. "That would have earned you the ugliest cell she could find for you." They moved down the corridor and briefly looked in at the next room, where the group of new girls were sitting on a row of plastic chairs, waiting for their turn to be searched.   
  
"After being searched and having your photo taken," Continued Karen, "You would be allowed one phone call. Then you would be taken for a full medical and psychiatric assessment, complete with drugs test."   
  
"A psychiatric assessment?" Said George, wide-eyed. "What on Earth for." George's expression reminded Karen of a rabbit caught in the headlights of a fast approaching car.   
  
"A psychiatric assessment is purely routine," Karen added, trying to put George at her ease. "And if you're a good actor, you'd have nothing to worry about." George looked a little more relaxed at this assertion. But as they made their way from reception and towards G wing, Karen had time to wonder just why George was so afraid of such a routine part of prison procedure.   
  
As they walked through the last gate on to G wing, there were a few inmates present, but most were still in other parts of the prison, employed in such things as education or stuffing envelopes. George had the immediate impression that she was in a huge goldfish bowl. The glass curved roof made her feel as if there must be someone up there looking down on her every move. Karen led the way towards a set of metal stairs and they walked right up to the 3's. They stood, looking over the rail to the mild activity going on below.   
  
"Queen of all you survey," Commented George. Karen smiled.   
  
"In a manner of speaking," she replied. "This is where we put the prisoners on the enhanced regime. They get their own cell, extra privileges and extra spends. They have to behave in order to rise so high," She finished, the flirtation clear in both voice and expression. George laughed.   
  
"So, there really are incentives for exemplary behaviour?" She said, her tone matching Karen's.   
  
"Oh, without a doubt," Karen replied. They walked back down the stairs, and were accosted by Denny.   
  
"Oy, Miss, I got a letter from Crystal. She's having another baby." Karen smiled broadly.   
  
"Oh, that's wonderful. How is she?"   
  
"She's great. She said to tell you that she'll make sure she's near a hospital this time." Karen laughed. As Denny went over to give the Julies Crystal's news, Karen explained.   
  
"I had the dubious pleasure of delivering Crystal's first baby when she was in here. She gave birth in a cell." George shuddered.   
  
"Does that happen often?" She asked warily.   
  
"No, thank goodness. Crystal was lucky that I used to be a nurse. The thing about this job, is that no day is ever the same. Crises of one form or another are fairly common." As if to affirm this statement, they were then approached by Tina.   
  
"Miss," She said, looking straight at Karen and totally ignoring George's presence. "I think someone should keep an eye on Buki. She got some photos of Lennox sent to her by that social worker yesterday, and she started cutting up again last night." Karen immediately looked serious.   
  
"Did she see the MO?"   
  
"No, it wasn't that bad, but she's lying on her bed looking at the pictures, and she won't stop crying. Only, you know what she's like, it starts off little and then gets worse."   
  
"Okay, Tina, I'll look in on her and put her on fifteen minute watch. but thank you for telling me."   
  
"Well, ever since Maxi died, in here's the only family I've got, innit." As she walked away, George was frowning.   
  
"Maxi?" She said, "Did she mean Maxi Purvis?"   
  
"Yes, Tina is Maxi Purvis's sister."   
  
"And do inmates often..."   
  
"Self harm?" Karen finished for her, observing George's clear discomfort with the concept. "Unfortunately, it's becoming more and more common. I really ought to check on Buki. Do you mind if I leave you for a few minutes. I won't be long, I promise."   
  
"No, of course not," George replied, hoping Karen really wouldn't be long.   
  
While Karen was otherwise engaged, George walked over to a couple of older-looking women sat at one of the tables.   
  
"Hello," Said Phyllida Oswin, "Are you new?" Before George could answer, Bev invited her to sit down. As they were both smoking, George got out her own and lit up.   
  
"How long have you been here?" George asked, feeling that this was probably a universal way of opening a conversation.   
  
"About a year," Said Bev miserably, "And we've got another four to do. What about you?" Used to thinking on her feet in court, George was nevertheless slightly thrown by the question.   
  
"I don't think I'll be here very long," She finally answered.   
  
"Lucky you," Said Phil. "but I must say, it is nice to have someone who comes from the same echelon of society, if you know what I mean." George laughed.   
  
"Do the natives become something of a nuisance then?" She asked, totally unable to resist having a laugh in the midst of this day of sheer oddness.   
  
"Yes, they do," Replied Bev. "Most of them wouldn't know a Quartier watch or a Ralph Lauren dress from the same sold by Marks and Spencer's, and a decent drink in here is like gold dust."   
  
"So, you can get a decent drink in here?" Asked a mystified George.   
  
"Oh yes," Enlightened Phil. "come to our cell during association, and we'll toast your welcome with one of Larkhall's finest gin and tonics." George thought that never again would she be surprised by anything. They were then approached by Karen. As George walked away with her, she said in an undertone,   
  
"I've just been offered a gin and tonic." Karen laughed.   
  
"Those two will offer anyone anything," She said, casting a backwards glance at Bev and Phil. "They're known as the Costa Cons, and as for the G and T, they even manage ice and lemon. Don't ask me how, but they do." George shook her head in wondered amazement.   
  
"I want to introduce you to the Julies," Said Karen, leading George towards the servery where the Julies were beginning preparations for lunch.   
  
"Hello, Miss," Said Julie S. "This a new girl?" She said, looking at George.   
  
"No, this is Ms Channing, she's a barrister here for a day doing research. Can I show her your cell?"   
  
"Yeah, I don't see why not. That all right, Ju?" She said, turning to Julie J.   
  
"Oh, yeah. The tidiest cell on the wing's what we've got," Replied Julie J. Karen led the way up to the 2's, and approached the pulled too door of the Julies' cell. When Karen pushed the door open, they were greeted to the sight of a cramped, very narrow space, taken up with two beds, a couple of metal wardrobes and a chair and table, with the sink and toilet tucked away in a corner. But the Julies had made it theirs, with rose patterned bedspreads and curtains at the tiny barred window. They'd also covered the notice board with pictures of their children. Numerous books and piles of paper which showed clear evidence of Julie S's education classes littered the table. Karen watched as George walked to the end of the tiny cell, and stared up at the window, far above her. Being so small, she had no chance of seeing out between the bars. She could almost feel the walls closing in on her. She turned to face Karen, and Karen could see the sheer panic in her eyes. George moved swiftly out of the cell and leaned on the rail, over which she could see more inmates returning to the wing.   
  
"I'd go mad if I had to stay in here," She said, her quickened breathing returning to normal. Karen briefly rubbed her shoulder.   
  
"Well, this time, you don't have to. Just remember that, and calm down."   
  
"Sorry," Said George, feeling utterly stupid for having reacted like that.   
  
"Do you remember Barbara Hunt?" Asked Karen, "One of the prosecution witnesses. She used to suffer from terrible claustrophobia."   
  
They both heard the sound of the two Julies coming up the stairs, and George schooled her face in to as normal an expression as possible.   
  
"We wondered how you was getting on," Asked Julie S. "Did you see the pictures of our kids?" They moved back to the doorway and Julie pointed to her picture of David which was tacked to the notice board.   
  
"That's my David," She said proudly, taking down the picture so that George could have a closer look. "He goes to public school, doing his A-levels this year." George stared in total shock at the picture of a very handsome seventeen-year-old in his school uniform.   
  
"But my father went there," Said George incredulously, "I recognise the school tie. He's still got one of his old ones at home."   
  
"That was the best thing I ever did for my David," Replied Julie, "Getting him in to that school." George had a thoroughly perplexed look on her face.   
  
"You're wondering how someone like us can afford to send her kid to public school," Stated Julie J, which made George look sheepish.   
  
"Yeah, well, we can afford it when we're not stuck in here," Put in Julie S. "And they reckon getting paid by a bloke for a bit of the other ain't an honourable profession. I'd say it's got to be if it means I can afford to send my kid to a good school."   
  
"You must be very proud of him," Said George, wondering just how many more new concepts her brain could handle.   
  
"Oh, yeah, he's my pride and joy," Said Julie. "I'd just like to be outside, being a mum to him, that's all." As they walked back down stairs, George asked Karen,   
  
"How long have they got?"   
  
"They're doing eight years for GBH, and last year, Julie Saunders, the one with the son at public school, was told that her breast cancer could come back within five."   
  
"No!" Moaned George, for once in her life thoroughly able to see the utter injustice being played out before her eyes.   
  
They were crossing the main association area when there came a howl of anger from behind them.   
  
"What the friggin hell's she doing here?" Yelled Al. Karen and George turned, to see Al advancing on them.   
  
"Al, calm down," Said Julie J placatingly, "She's just a barrister."   
  
"Just a barrister, my arse," Said Al scornfully. "She's the cow that defended Snowball!" There was an awful, stunned silence as the entire population of G wing took in this piece of information. "I think she needs a bit of a kicking for that, don't you, girls?" Al shouted, launching herself at George. With split second reactions, Karen wrapped her arms round George's waist and literally lifted her off her feet to move her out of reach of Al's descending fists. The inevitable shout rose from the inmates at the prospect of a suit getting a well-deserved beating. But Al was so angry, that she failed to notice Karen's lightning removal of George out of harm's way, until she tripped and lay flat on her face, giving Di and Sylvia enough opportunity to grab her arms and drag her away to segregation. Having set George on her feet again, Karen kept her arms protectively round the much smaller woman until McKenzy had been carted off to the block.   
  
"Sorry about that," Said Karen, finally letting go of a clearly frightened George.   
  
"Don't be," Replied George, "I think you just saved my life there." Karen turned, to see an obviously amused Fenner looking over at them. Karen stalked over to him, closely followed by George.   
  
"How bloody stupid can you get!" Said Karen furiously to Fenner.   
  
"McKenzy was only letting off steam," Replied Fenner, as if she'd been doing nothing more than having a raucous game of football.   
  
"If there's one thing you absolutely do not do," Said Karen, her voice rising in anger, "It's to disobey a direct order from me when it involves a person's safety."   
  
"I don't know," Said Fenner nonchalantly, "I think McKenzy's right. Anyone who defends that piece of scum, Merriman, deserves everything they get, and I'd have thought you'd agree, given that Merriman almost got you killed." He said this last bit with his face very close to Karen's.   
  
"I gave you a specific order," Said Karen, giving Fenner the same eyeball treatment he was giving her. "I told you to keep McKenzy out of the way. What's to misunderstand about that. Pull a stunt like that again, and you'll be joining your mate Hedges on the scrap heap."   
  
"What the hell are you talking about?" Asked Fenner, the sudden involvement of Colin's name giving him cause for concern.   
  
"Don't make me spell it out for you," Replied Karen, knowing she was in serious danger of giving Tuesday's game away.   
  
"You don't want to make threats you can't live up to," Challenged Fenner.   
  
"If Karen is in need of a witness, Mr. Fenner, as to today's events," Put in George, in her most authoritative tone, "You can be sure she'll have one."   
  
"Interfering bitch," Said Fenner, clearly rattled by the ice cold gaze that was being sent his way.   
  
"Really," Said George conversationally. "Perhaps one day you'll find out just how much of a bitch I'm capable of being." As Fenner slunk away, Karen turned to George.   
  
"I've never seen him that rattled before. Well done. But I really am sorry about what just happened. You should never have been put at risk like that."   
  
"It wasn't your fault," Said George. "You gave him an order, and he chose to ignore it. I'm fine, really." Karen was not amused to look over to the gate leading on to the wing, to see Grayling staring over at them open mouthed. As he approached them, Karen murmured,   
  
"Here comes my P45."   
  
"Well, if you need a bitch to argue unfair dismissal," Said George, giving Karen a reassuring smile. But Grayling only had one thing to say to Karen.   
  
"When Ms Channing has left, I want to see you in my office." As he left, Karen said,   
  
"He wouldn't dare give me the sack. I've got too much on him for him to even contemplate it."   
  
"His cover up of Fenner?"   
  
"Oh, yes. He hasn't even begun to pay back what he owes me for that."   
  
A while later when they were seated in Karen's office and Karen's secretary had brought them some lunch, Karen said,   
  
"Dare I ask if you've learnt your lesson?" George rolled her eyes over her cup of coffee.   
  
"I think it's fairly safe to say that yes, I most certainly have. I wouldn't have stood a chance against the likes of Alison McKenzy."   
  
"Denny used to be a bit like that. But she's settled down a lot."   
  
"Denny?"   
  
"The one who told me about Crystal's baby. She's in for arson, set fire to her childrens' home because they were threatening to move her away from the only place she'd ever felt happy."   
  
"They really are like a family some of them, aren't they."   
  
"Yes, because for some of them, the people they've met in here are all they've got. Take the Julies, their conviction for GBH, was because they poured an urn of hot tea in to the lap of a man who was pimping Julie J's daughter."   
  
"That sounds like poetic justice," Said George, slightly marvelling at the lengths the women would clearly go to for each other.   
  
"And when Denny's mum died about eighteen months ago, Yvonne took Denny under her wing. If necessary, the one thing they will all do without a moment's consideration is support each other. You get a really mixed bag of people, and when it comes to any threat common to all, they stand as one. It's amazing when it's working in a positive way, but it means they do need careful handling. There was a riot once, when I was on holiday, which Helen had the joys of dealing with, and the only reason it didn't get extremely dangerous for the officers, was because the inmates weren't all working on the same side. If they had been, god knows how that would have ended."   
  
"I've learnt an awful lot today," Said George contemplatively. "Other than not to push John too far again, I've learnt a lot about human nature. It makes what I do most of the time seem pretty inconsequential."   
  
"Don't let Jo hear you say that," Said Karen with a grin. "Or she'll finally think she's won."   
  
"No chance," Said George scornfully. "Talking of winning or losing, how did you get on with Shell Dockley?"   
  
"Well, the court order was absolutely necessary, I wouldn't have got near her without it. She was able to tell me an awful lot, most of which I wish I didn't know. The most important thing being that after she was recaptured, Fenner was pimping her. She was giving handjobs for twenty quid a time, and Fenner was pocketing half of it. One of my other officers, Collin Hedges, it seems he was in on this as well."   
  
"That does give me a bit more to work on," Replied George, "Living off immoral earnings for a start. Come and see me on Monday and we can go over everything else Dockley told you. It sounds like she may be the ace in the pack." When Karen eventually let George back through the last set of gates, and they collected her phone and tablets from the gate lodge, George looked incredibly relieved.   
  
"I wouldn't have left you in there, you know," Said Karen, walking with George to her car.   
  
"I know, it just feels good to be out of there, that's all. It may sound odd, but I feel an incredible need for a shower."   
  
"No, it doesn't," Replied Karen with a smile. "Prison always does that the first few times."   
  
"Well, I'm hoping this is my first and last."   
  
"It will be, if you learn to control your tongue," Said Karen, grinning broadly and looking George straight in the eye.   
  
"You've enjoyed the role reversal, haven't you," Asked George as she unlocked her car.   
  
"Maybe," Conceded Karen, "It makes a change for you to see the confident me."   
  
"Oh, I did that when I crossed swords with you in court. I'll see you next week, when I can assure you the reins of power will be well and truly back in my hands." 


	92. Part Ninety Two

Part Ninety Two   
  
A very grateful George drove off down the road as if drunk on the freedom she had regained, very loud music fading on the air with her exhaust smoke. Ken on the gate was puzzled at this and thought that it takes all sorts to make a world, even this woman. In the meantime, Karen turned her footsteps with no great enthusiasm to obey the royal summons.  
  
Karen felt that she had gained a measure of stability and tranquillity in her job as Larkhall had run through its stock of nasty surprises. Grayling had remained frigid and distant with the minimum of social interaction. That suited her fine as that allowed her semi autonomy to run her part of Larkhall pretty much as she wanted. As for Fenner, he was behaving outwardly as near as he could ever become to a model officer. Karen knew now that this was his standard protective device when he felt the heat was on him to lie low until the danger, real or otherwise, had passed. This was how she had found him before but she was certain that this time she wasn't going to be fooled like she was last time. At the end of the day, she reasoned to herself, you start to learn from life rather than forever being a victim of it. Another reason for her satisfied feeling was that , after visiting Shell Dockley, she felt that she knew him at last and knew him for what he really was. The court case was starting to roll and all she needed to do was to stick in there and keep things ticking over in her day to day job.   
  
She knocked politely and pushed the door to Grayling's lair open and smiled briefly. There was no answering smile in response, only a cold gesture to sit in the very kind of seat George had taken opposite her.   
  
"Karen, I'll come to the point. I have just received a complaint about you from the Chief Executive of Ashmore special psychiatric hospital about a visit you made to one of the inmates there. Delighted as I am that you are taking an interest in matters outside the narrow confines of this prison, I frown at such an initiative which results in this prison with my name on the door receiving a complaint………."   
  
"Exactly what was I supposed to have done wrong?" Karen asked quietly. The knack with Grayling was to pin him down to specifics. She had realised that this was his weakness to zero in on.   
  
"You will kindly wait till I have finished my story and I will tell you exactly what you have done wrong, more than you will like," Grayling glared at her.  
  
"For a start, I checked your personal diary for the day and you were down as 'working from home on accounts.' Your visit to Ashmore does not fit in to what I would call a description of working on the G Wing budget, does it?"   
  
For one moment, Karen was locked into the frame of mind that made herself feel guilty as charged and to let someone in authority trample all over her. It had happened before when she was a nurse when some dragon of a ward sister would do that to her and occasionally when she was an ordinary prison officer. She used to come out of such an interview with a mixed feeling of resentment and annoyance with herself at having capitulated when there was no need to. She was younger then and she had toughened up over the years and learned not to play the victim in her professional life.  
  
"The definition of home is rather elastic, Neil. Wherever I'm working out of this prison is home to me. I thought that this was one of the very few perks of my job but perhaps I was wrong about that?"she answered, chancing a touch of irony. "And I was dealing with accounts in the sense that I am settling accounts with Jim Fenner over having raped me many months ago. I've never forgotten or forgiven what he did that night."  
  
"I've had the Chief Executive yelling down the phone at me that you landed yourself on her doorstep with no advance notice and waving court orders around. We depend on them for a spirit of cooperation and your actions are hardly going to make them amenable if we want a favour off them at short notice. In what way do you think that stomping your way all over Ashmore will improve customer relations? What did you think you were doing, Karen?" Grayling blustered.  
  
She sighed in contempt at Grayling's last question. This wasn't the first time she had been hauled up before authority and been asked this question. She could never decide whether that authority symbol really wanted to hear Karen's explanations of her actions or whether or not it was a rhetorical question, appealing to the manifestly sensible majority against the outcast and the rebel. When she had become an authority in her turn, she made absolutely sure that if she handed out any reprimands, she was much more original and she thought out the matter thoroughly in advance. The best rebel was someone who had had a taste of authority and her time when she was back in uniform reminded her of this when the Wing Governor over her was first Fenner and then Sylvia.   
  
"If you must know, Neil, I asked her very politely if I could talk to the one person who knows more about Fenner than anyone else, Shell Dockley. It was only when she was being bloody minded and downright obstructive about the whole business that I had to slap a high court order on her," Karen replied in John's nonchalant tones that he employed when he indicated that he would seek a writ of habeas corpus. "And if you remember rightly we had a little discussion about your non existent friend in the CPS who didn't tell you that my case had very little chance of success like you told me about. I told When you arranged a home visit for Denny Blood, you surely don't think you were paying off a debt to me that easily," Karen retaliated with her best ironic thrust to take the steam out of Grayling.  
  
"It looks as if you have friends in high places."  
  
"Now you know what it feels like…..and my friends are more powerful than yours, even Chief Executives."   
  
"Don't think you can blackmail me, Karen. You are putting yourself in a very questionable position. What's it to be next time, I wonder," Grayling glared. He loved the subtle exercise of pressure to bend someone to his will but hated it when he was on the receiving end.  
  
"It isn't blackmail to grant me something that I had reasonably requested and something that you are well able to do within the rules," Karen's rapier verbal riposte, counterattacked like lightning. She was unaware that her experience of appearing in a court of law had definitely sharpened her ability in the art of verbal cut and thrust and especially as she followed this up with a crushing argument. "Especially as this favour is directly linked to the way you deceived me all those months ago and I was more vulnerable than you will ever know unless you have been in the exact same situation, Neil."   
  
Grayling's mouth was pursed tight and contracted in that characteristic manner that indicated his displeasure while the frozen seconds ticked away. There was a curious expression in his eyes that visibly blanked off any thought that challenged his equilibrium. Such is the nature of the man of vision that alternative thinking is a subversive act.  
  
"You have to understand that you are an essential part of management and that I expect my management team to be 'singing from the same hymnsheet.' We may have our little differences but we should all pull together for the greater good of Larkhall. When I first came to Larkhall as Governor, I made it my mission to ensure that HMS Larkhall would be steaming a straight course……."  
  
Where had she heard that phrase before , a part of Karen's mind nagged away at her as her mind went on automatic pilot while Grayling droned on interminably. Then she was hit by a blinding light of inspirational memory which hardly related to the darkened gloom that Grayling chose to work in. She had exchanged a bit of small talk and remembered George talk sarcastically of that being a favourite phrase of her ex, the other Neil. It seemed no coincidence that the same managementspeak infested both the Home Office and the world of politics like some malignant plague. Ever since she had first talked to John in his chambers, she felt that she was being educated as to who really pulled the strings in institutions and she sensed a spirit of corruption that ran across all institutions. The trouble with working in the prison service day in, day out was that you became very insular in your outlook in a way of life that had as much bolts and bars as did the prisoners. The only difference between them was that the prisoners had no choice but to be behind bars.  
  
"You haven't been listening to a single word I've been saying, Karen," Grayling snapped.  
  
"You were saying, Neil, that I should do as you say," Karen summarised simply.  
  
Grayling's eyes swiveled away from Karen's face with a hint of a smirk at the corner of her lips. This was, indeed, what he meant but he didn't like it when she expressed it so bluntly.  
  
"That's not the only reason I've called you to see me. I want you to explain that disgraceful exhibition when one of our notorious prisoners was allowed to attack the barrister who visited Larkhall. It doesn't matter who the visitor is…"which Karen's mind interpreted to mean that it still rankled with Grayling …….."but as Wing Governor, you are responsible for ensuring the safety at all times of visitors to this prison. any incidents give Larkhall a bad name."  
  
"I had given explicit orders to Jim Fenner that Al McKenzie be kept strictly away from Ms Channing, only he directly disobeyed my express order. He even had the nerve to say that because she was the barrister who defended Snowball Merriman, she 'deserved everything she got.' I explained that to her and, while she was pretty shaken up, she understood perfectly well what had happened. More than you are right now."  
  
"You're out of line, Karen. I have more trouble from you than all my other Wing Governors put together and I'm not sure how much more I'm going to tolerate your 'go it alone' approach. You have this 'voice of the people' approach which is prejudicial to proper management. You can't run with the hares and hunt with the hounds,'" Grayling growled, a dangerous light in his eye.   
  
"Oh, so running Larkhall is like foxhunting or harecoursing, is it?" Karen fired back at the man for whom she had the utmost loathing and contempt.  
  
"You're getting me wrong," Grayling said irritably. "Listen, I'll overlook your actions this once but if you rock the boat again then I may be forced to make a disciplinary over the matter."  
  
He's on the run, came the triumphant reply. This is his way of trying to get out of the situation without losing face. He's bitten off more than he can chew. It's best to give him the escape route.  
  
"I'll tell you what, Neil. I was seriously thinking of making a disciplinary matter over Jim Fenner's direct disobedience of my order, but I'll leave it as long as I have your permission that I can leave it be this time, but if he crosses the line again, I'll have his guts for garters."  
  
Grayling scowled at Karen, seeing his ploy so neatly turned around against him but even he couldn't think of a pretext to object to Karen.Silently, he gestured to Karen to leave.  
  
In a glow of rejoicing, she got up from her chair and made her way out of the door.  
  
"And don't worry, Neil. I'll let you know immediately if Ms Channing does write or phone me up about today's unfortunate incident," And Karen fired her parting shot at Grayling. She knew very well that her apparent helpfulness poorly concealed the casual way that barristers might contact her rather than Grayling.   
  
She virtually danced down the landing, part of her dizzy and slightly drunk on her victory and the other more cautious part of her advising her that one day she could push matters a little bit too far. At least in her professional life, she had the instinctive knack of where to draw the line. 


	93. Part Ninety Three

Part Ninety Three   
  
George was sitting in her home office, at the computer, trying to sort through the day's e-mails, and attempting to put her tour of Larkhall out of her mind. She hated to admit that it had been a good idea of Karen's, but she knew that the threat of a night alongside the likes of Alison McKenzy and Denny Blood would keep her forever polite and subdued in any judge's presence. There were no such things as privacy or dignity where English prisons were concerned, no matter what the age or status of the individual. George liked her home office, it was probably one of her favourite rooms in the house. Opposite the door was an enormous mahogany desk that held a computer, a printer and various other paraphernalia associated with the modern day lawyer. Along the wall between the door and the desk were three filing cabinets reserved for George's either open or most pressing cases. Along the wall behind the door was a floor to ceiling bookcase holding all of her law books plus a number of old cases contained in box files on the upper shelves. Next to the desk under the window and opposite the book shelves, was a very comfortable three seater sofa and along the wall between the sofa and the bookcase was a low table holding a stereo. To George, this room was vaguely reminiscent of her student days and the room she'd had at college. Since finishing her law degree at the London School of Economics, she'd never quite got out of the habit of working to music. The reassuring rhythm of what ever she felt in the mood for always seemed to unfreeze her brain, to release the electrical impulses from their confines to enable them to work in the most effective way possible. Lighting a cigarette, she flicked through various e-mails from people wanting an immediate appointment with her and forwarded them to her secretary at her real office. Having answered two or three that required her urgent attention, she went in to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of red wine. Walking back in to her office, she put the glass down on the desk and moved over to the stereo. She needed something familiar tonight, something that, years ago, had gone some way to defining the person she was. Putting Abba Gold in to the CD-player, she allowed herself a few moments to relive some of her memories from her school and college years. She could vividly remember dancing the night away to some of these old songs, her body clad in as few clothes as possible and her long, blonde hair streaming out behind her. She'd been so sexy in those days. This didn't mean she wasn't now, for her age she looked stunning most of the time, but at the age of nineteen, she'd been able to capture the heart of any man she chose. She remembered fondly the many rows she'd had with her father whenever he saw her about to leave the house for a night out in what he described as two scraps of cloth with the odd button here and there. During the holidays when she had to live at home, she'd listened to many of these records, and they really had been records in those days, whilst getting ready to go out. She'd dance in front of the mirror, totally naked sometimes singing her heart out to these old familiar tunes of her youth. She and her father had clashed on many occasion because he thought her music was far too loud and far too raucous. She smiled when she thought of this. Her music had nothing on some of Charlie's for loud and raucous. Whilst John had still been teaching law, Charlie had lived with him most of the time, which had suited everyone. John had loved every minute he'd spent with Charlie, but George had often found it a strain, especially when Charlie had been younger. They'd had no common ground, nothing on which to base the foundations of a relationship. But once she'd reached her teenaged years, Charlie had begun to live more and more at home. During one of their many numerous arguments, John had told George that the only reason she got on with Charlie was because She'd never grown out of her own adolescent disregard for others. George had hated him for saying that at the time, but in retrospect she supposed he'd been right. As she sat at her desk, thumbing through the latest copy of The Modern Law Review, which in this issue didn't appear to hold anything of major interest to her, she found she was reading the same words over and over again. Flashes of things she'd seen and heard during her little visit to Larkhall kept creeping in on her thoughts. Putting the journal face down so that she wouldn't lose her place, she picked up the remote control to the stereo and flicked through the tracks on the CD, finally settling on one that had been one of her favourites when she'd been at college, and even twenty or so years later still had its charm. As she allowed her throat and lips to fit themselves around the so familiar words, it struck her not for the first time how relevant they'd once been, and perhaps in their own way still were.   
  
When John drew up outside George's house, he was pleased to see that her car was the only one in the drive. They didn't need company for what he had planned. Thinking that after her day's punishment of being shown what a prison would actually be like, he didn't think she'd let him in voluntarily. So, never without a back up plan, he'd driven over to the university to borrow his daughter's door key. George wouldn't thank him for this, and neither would Charlie if she'd known what he really wanted it for, but these were only details. He jabbed his thumb on the doorbell, but not feeling like company, George ignored it. She was in the middle of one of her favourite songs and wasn't stopping for anyone. Knowing she was definitely in because of the presence of her car, John deftly fitted the key in the lock. When he silently pushed the front door open, he was greeted by a sound he hadn't heard for years. For a moment standing transfixed on the doorstep, he just listened. George was singing, something he hadn't heard her do since the happy, early days of their marriage, before everything had been turned upside down. Closing the door with only the tiniest of clicks, he stood in the hall and listened to her. Any amateur singer always sounds so much better when they don't think they're being heard. This is primarily because they have no-one but themselves to impress, no-one but themselves to get it right for. They can let go of all the tension that immediately alters tuning and clarity of tone that is only present when they fear criticism. A soft, warm smile crossed his face as he listened to her. George had only ever not cared about him hearing her sing if she was either happy or drunk, and in both cases it'd enchanted him to know she was capable of letting go some of her reserve. When singing the kind of thing she was now, the plumb disappeared from her mouth, making her sound completely different, and giving her an extra level of intrigue which always rocketed his libido. He knew exactly where she was, sat in her home office, probably at the computer. He crept slowly nearer, but stopped just before the doorway. He didn't want her to become aware of his presence quite yet. Then her words finally began to register with him.   
  
"I was in your arms,   
  
thinking I belonged there.   
  
I figured it made sense, building me a fence.   
  
Building me a home,   
  
thinking I'd be strong there.   
  
But I was a fool, playing by the rules..."   
  
In a few simple lines she'd perfectly described their marriage. At first, she'd clearly felt safe, secure, as though she had belonged somewhere. But then he'd ruined it. He'd met Jo. Sure, she hadn't been the first and George knew that, but Jo had been different, held something that George couldn't hope to give him. He felt a twinge of regret as he listened to her strong, rich tones, hovering somewhere between contralto and mezzo, with the confident, relaxed vibrato that moulded itself to every word. But when she sang,   
  
"Tell me does she kiss,   
  
like I used to kiss you.   
  
Does it feel the same,   
  
when she calls your name.   
  
Somewhere deep inside,   
  
you must know I miss you.   
  
But what can I say,   
  
rules must be obeyed..."   
  
he knew she was talking specifically about Jo. He knew George had always felt compared to Jo, even if he, John, hadn't actually done so. But when she sang,   
  
"The Judges will decide,   
  
the likes of me abide..."   
  
he almost laughed. When had George ever abided by anything he'd said, in or out of court. There was so much bitterness in these few words that it hit him anew how much she resented ever having loved him, and possibly that she resented loving him still. He decided that it was about time he made his presence known. Moving in to the doorway of her office, he was about to speak when, with her back to him, she caught sight of his reflection in the monitor. Whirling round in her swivel chair with a heavy, marble paperweight in her hand, she looked ready to spring in to action.   
  
"Christ all mighty!" She said, realising it was John standing there. "I thought it was Neil."   
  
"Well, you'd have been in a lot of trouble if you'd thrown that thing at him," Replied John moving further in to the room. Ignoring his jibe, she said furiously,   
  
"What the bloody hell are you doing here?"   
  
"I thought I'd come and see how you got on at Larkhall," He said, conveniently forgetting to mention his real reason for turning up.   
  
"Doesn't an unanswered doorbell mean anything to you?" She asked in disgust, finally putting the paperweight back on the desk.   
  
"Not when I borrowed Charlie's key, no," He said holding up the offending object. Scooting across the carpet in the chair, she plucked the key out of his hand.   
  
"Charlie and I will be having words the next time I see her," She said, calming down somewhat.   
  
"Don't be too hard on her," Said John affectionately. "I didn't actually tell her what I wanted it for." Putting the key safely away in a drawer, George said,   
  
"So, what are you really here for?"   
  
"Like I said," He answered, moving closer to her. "I wondered how you got on at Larkhall."   
  
"rubbish," Said George scornfully. "You could have asked me that on the phone." As she took a swig from the glass of Merlot on the desk, he said,   
  
"Am I that transparent?"   
  
"You always were," She said, putting the glass down. He moved further forward and ran a caressing finger down her cheek.   
  
"I thought we might finish what we started the other night," He said softly.   
  
"I thought so," Replied George, having correctly guessed his true motive. She willed her body not to tremble at his lazy, sensual touch but he didn't miss it. "anyway," She said, slightly flustered and attempting to move back from him, "We did finish what I started." Her mixed use of pronouns amused him, it wasn't as if he'd needed much persuasion.   
  
"You didn't if memory serves," he said, a hand resting on her shoulder.   
  
"You didn't need to remind me of that."   
  
"If that was anyone's fault, it was mine," He assured her.   
  
"It's hardly your fault that I'm as tense and tort as your E string, now is it," She said, turning away from him. Thanking the creator of swivel chairs, he turned her back to face him.   
  
"It sounds like you need relaxing," He said, leaning down to kiss her. God, she loved it when he used every trick in the book to pull her. There was nothing more sexy than a man who is prepared to use every word, every touch at his disposal to really make a girl feel not just wanted, but well and truly lusted after.   
  
"this is terribly presumptuous of you," She said mockingly between kisses.   
  
"You can talk," He said on a laugh, remembering her proposition of the other night.   
  
"Ah, but I had consumed an entire bottle of red wine, so I'd say that gives me an excuse." He stopped for a moment and stared at her aghast.   
  
"I knew you'd been drinking but I didn't think it was that much. Get caught driving after that much and you'll be out of a job."   
  
"I was in a mood for taking risks," She said, pulling his face back down to hers.   
  
"I noticed," He replied, taking her hand and pulling her to her feet. As they moved over to the sofa, they continued kissing.   
  
They lay with her on the inside lying in the crook of his left arm. He made no move to undo her clothing, but just held and kissed her, thinking that she probably hadn't enjoyed much of this simple pleasure from Neil. George felt warm and tranquil cocooned between the soft back of the sofa and John's hard chest. But remembering the urgency which in the old days had fired her up as much as him, she began to wonder if he would find her too slow to respond after all these years. Hard and furious still had its place for George, but more often these days she found herself totally unable to relax unless whoever she was with took their time in making her feel special and wanted.   
  
"This really isn't a good idea, John," She said a while later.   
  
"Why?" She turned her gaze away from him, not for the first time wondering if he could read minds.   
  
"Because as I discovered the other night, I can't pretend with you."   
  
"I'm not asking you too."   
  
"But..."   
  
"George, the reason you didn't enjoy it the other night was because you weren't relaxed."   
  
"Why do you think I got through a bottle of wine while I was in the bath?"   
  
"Alcohol only relaxes those who are relatively content to start with." George went quiet for a moment.   
  
"Fine," She said, "But don't say I didn't warn you."   
  
"I will consider myself duly forearmed," He said, beginning to kiss her again.   
  
"I need some different music," She said after a while. Reluctantly disentangling himself from her, he moved over to the stereo and removed Abba from the CD-player. Briefly rolling his eyes at the pile of Cd's she had there, he selected Chopin, the only one that positively agreed with him. When he joined her back on the sofa, he said,   
  
"Why are we staying in here?"   
  
"Because I like this room," She replied as if no other explanation were necessary. "Besides," She said with a provocative flutter of her long eyelashes, "This is about the only room in the house we haven't used for nefarious purposes." He laughed.   
  
"I suppose that's as good a reason as any." As Chopin's beautiful notes wandered over her with the feather-light touch of a sprinkler on a drought-parched lawn, the tension gradually began to disappear. As he continued kissing her, and running his fingers through her hair, she briefly thought that she wouldn't mind staying here for ever, but like Jo some weeks before, reminded herself that John wasn't the staying type. When his hand eventually moved to her breast, the friction of the silk of her blouse on her skin made her gasp. He loved watching George's eyes when he was doing things like this to her. Apart from the words she uttered, her eyes were probably the most expressive part of her. They'd widened as he'd coaxed her nipple to a peak where it was pushing at the delicate fabric covering her. She moved her hand to the buttons and began undoing them.   
  
"Now who's eager?" He said softly, his deep, mocking voice making her senses tingle.   
  
"Clothes always seem to get in the way," She replied, wriggling out of her blouse and tossing it carelessly aside. Enchanted to see she wasn't wearing a bra, he ran a finger over her breast, barely making contact, as if she were some priceless artifact with a sign saying "Do not touch."   
  
"You're looking at me as though I'm that priceless strad that you can just about afford but can't quite justify buying."   
  
"ah well," he said conversationally. "Beautiful women and priceless instruments have quite a lot in common. Give them due care and attention, and play them with total dedication and precision, and they usually give out ten times that in return." As she took a breath to admonish him, he dipped his head and ran his tongue over her nipple before enclosing it in the warmest, most agile lips she'd ever had on her. As she'd been about to speak, she couldn't help letting out a deep, throaty moan as the waves of lust began to ripple over her like the incoming tide. She was lying on her back now, with him leaning over her. Every thought, every feeling she had was centered on that one nipple, that one point of extreme pleasure. As he kissed his way over to the other side so as not to leave her other breast unattended, he deftly removed her skirt and underwear almost without her realising. But when she felt his hand on her thigh, she said,   
  
"I swear you just click your fingers to get a woman's clothes off."   
  
"It is something of an art," He replied with a grin.   
  
"Yes," She said knowingly. "One that I'm sure you learnt at a very early age."   
  
"I've never heard you complaining," He said, moving his hand in ever increasing circles until the very tip of his finger grazed her clit.   
  
"Always nice to know someone who is aware of the finer things in life," She said, the word life being forcefully extended in to a sound wholly induced by the skillful manipulation of the most sexually sensitive part of a woman's body. God, she thought, she was loathed to admit it, but she'd never had anyone who could match John for what he was doing now. But then she supposed he'd had a lot of practice. Neil hadn't even come close. In fact, she doubted that Neil even knew the clitoris existed. Foreplay was something to be endured only if he was asked very nicely. George could feel her insides melting, and she was sure John could too as he inched three fingers inside her. As he kissed his way down over her very flat stomach and along her hip bone, she shivered as she knew what was coming. She hadn't had the pleasure of this delicacy for longer than she cared to remember. The one time she'd asked Neil to do this for her, he'd flatly refused, saying that he didn't like it. Even when she'd pointed out that every woman tasted differently and had asked him to at least try it, he'd still said no. John was lying between her legs now, alternately massaging her clit with his tongue and tasting her arousal as if it were the finest wine any French vineyard could produce. Briefly lifting his head to look up at her, he saw the intensity of her expression and her teeth that were clamped down on her lower lip.   
  
"Don't stay quiet on my account," he said, all the time moving his fingers over and inside her.   
  
"Why can't I get you out of my bloody system?" She said, clearly cursing herself for giving in so easily.   
  
"Don't fight it," He said with a broad smile. "I'm told it's my endless sensitivity and charm."   
  
"Which tart told you that then?" She asked, always more prone to slip in to unlawyerly language when she was either drunk or aroused.   
  
"I can't remember offhand," He said, ignoring the jibe. Returning his tongue to her clit, he searched for and located her G spot, something Neil had never even attempted. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps as he simultaneously nibbled on her clit and moved his hand inside her, grazing that internal pleasure point with every thrust. Knowing she had to be close, he reached up with his left hand and rolled her right nipple between finger and thumb. She cried out as she came, finally letting go of every last shred of self-doubt and reserve, simply allowing her orgasm to take her wherever it chose. As a result of all her pent up anger, frustration and self-loathing, her orgasm was more incredible, more explosive than any she'd had in a very long time, possibly even since she'd been married to John. When she finally seemed to have come down from her peak, he gently withdrew his hand and kissed his way back up her body, pausing to soothe each slightly bruised nipple with his tongue on the way up. When he reached her face, he simply lay there, gazing in to those eyes that for once, weren't clouded by either anger or sadness. She just lay there for a while, her breathing returning to normal.   
  
"You ought to come with a government health warning," She said eventually, in the soft, drowsy voice that was completely devoid of all her bitterness.   
  
"Why?" He asked, smiling at her.   
  
"Because I think I'm utterly incapable of moving."   
  
"No-one says you have to move any time soon," He observed.   
  
"But I really ought to return the favour," She said, smiling at him lasciviously. "It would after all be insufferably rude not too." He leaned forward and kissed her.   
  
"The night is very young, George."   
  
"Oh, really," She drawled, lightly fingering his belt buckle. Then, returning his kiss with a long one of her own, she said, "I'm glad to hear it. I wouldn't want you rushing off anywhere too soon." They simply lay there for a while, George allowing herself a few minutes of twilight time, a short drifting between sleeping and waking. John watched her, knowing that this form of total relaxation was probably what she needed.   
  
"You look ridiculous," She said after a while.   
  
"Why?"   
  
"The distinct presence of clothes just doesn't look right somehow, especially as I don't have a stitch on."   
  
"Whereas thoroughly debauched looks very good on you."   
  
A while later as they lay in the enormous bath in her en suite, drinking wine and eating some strawberries that John had found in the fridge, George felt that she could easily become hooked on this. Everything John seemed to do for her tonight was either erotically charged to the point of flash over, or soft and gentle in the way she'd never had it with Neil. Tonight, he seemed to know everything she was feeling, to be able to interpret every nuance, every alteration in tone of voice or facial expression. She felt like one of The Lotus Eaters from the Tennyson poem. She was indulging every sense, taking gratification from every pleasurable experience while she had the chance. She didn't want to move from this utterly addictive little place in time where she felt cherished, as if he really loved her. Like the men in Tennyson's narrative, she had no desire to tare herself away from her island, the source of her exotic fruit of pure pleasure. He had again brought her to orgasm, just with his hand this time as she'd reclined with her legs draped casually over his and with her head on his firm shoulder. The warm subtly scented water had lapped around them as she'd wantonly spread her legs to give him better access which had made him smile. She could behave like a whore with John, in the certain knowledge that he found it incredibly sexy. He'd kissed her as she came for the second time that evening, and she could taste the crisp, yet easy-going flavour of the Chablis on his lips together with the tang of the strawberries.   
  
"This will probably be the last time we do this, won't it?" She said reaching for the bottle to refill their glasses.   
  
"What makes you say that?"   
  
"I don't know," She mused, "There's something final about it, that's all. It was just a thought."   
  
"don't think, just feel," He replied, bringing the last strawberry to her lips.   
  
"I suppose your therapist taught you that little line," She said after eating the strawberry.   
  
"She might have mentioned it."   
  
When they'd finally emerged from the bath and were ensconced in her extremely opulent king-sized bed, George was sprawled with her perfectly manicured feet resting somewhere near the pillow, and her wavy, blonde hair cascading over his thighs. She was fulfilling her earlier promise to return the favour. She'd always enjoyed doing this for John. It was slightly bad, naughty somehow, and allowed her to play the whore she'd always secretly wanted to be. He was lying utterly still, breathing slowly through his nose and with his eyes shut. He had a hand casually resting on her thigh, but made absolutely no movement as he savoured what she knew she was very skilled at. Briefly wondering if he'd fallen asleep on her, she allowed her teeth to gently graze his skin.   
  
"Don't you dare," He murmured, with the rumble of a threat not far below the surface. She couldn't resist emitting a soft, extremely evil little laugh. In retaliation, he found the spot just behind her knees that could reduce her to giggles in seconds. Her mouth otherwise occupied, she lightly slapped his thigh, but to no avail. Her will to speak being too strong, she freed her mouth from its earlier activity and began to fight back. She wasn't the only one who could be reduced to a gibbering heap of laughter. John soon discovered that the problem in trying to provoke an ex in this manner is that they also have a very good memory of particular weak spots. She begged him to stop what he was doing but he wouldn't let up. He thought it was wonderful to hear her laughing like this. George didn't laugh enough, and he wouldn't liked to have attempted to estimate when she'd last given way to helpless giggles as she was doing now. Eventually, she lay completely still, her hair fanning out across the pillow, quite unable to beat him at his own game.   
  
"It is nice to hear you laugh," He said, leaning over her, his soft gaze not fooling her in the least.   
  
"this is where you've wanted me all night, isn't it," She asked, recovering from his onslaught. "Totally at your mercy." The look on his face turned in to that of a lion who had finally cornered his prey.   
  
"I might have hoped it would be the eventual outcome," He said noncommittally.   
  
"I bet you did," She replied, joining her lips with his, in that searing way that can only result from an evening of continual sexual build up. No initial seducing of the senses was necessary, as they'd both been working up to this point since his arrival. As he slid inside her, she knew this was where she belonged, this was coming home. As they moved as one, they clung to each other, in an almost desperate attempt to prolong the moment indefinitely. Again, the feeling of finality swept over George, making her imprint every sight, every sound, every feeling of this night indelibly on her memory. When nature's age old process pushed them simultaneously over the edge, she cried out his name and he could see in her eyes just how much she still loved and needed him.   
  
As they lay replete, sated, as metaphorically full as the carnivore after an enormous meal, John's gaze shifted to the illustration of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden that hung above the bed.   
  
"I thought that used to hang downstairs," He commented.   
  
"It did," Replied George drowsily, "But I needed something to look at if ever Neil's interest turned in my direction, which wasn't all that often."   
  
"Ah, so I do have my uses then."   
  
"You could say so."   
  
"Talking of pictures," Went on John conversationally, "Why did you get those photographs taken of me and Jo?" George was silent for a moment. Then, moving slightly out of his arms, she said,   
  
"Oh, thank you very bloody much."   
  
"What for?"   
  
"I've so far managed not to think about little Miss Oxfam since you arrived. You always have to spoil it, don't you."   
  
"I thought you were getting on better with Jo these days."   
  
"That's the point, you stupid man. do you have any idea just what I've helped you to do to her tonight?"   
  
"Don't even think of going there, George. anyway, she knows I'm thoroughly untrustworthy where women are concerned. She's probably used to it by now."   
  
"You amaze me," Began George, ready to launch in to full prosecution mode but John forestalled her.   
  
"George, what Jo doesn't know won't hurt her."   
  
"You're kidding yourself if you really believe that."   
  
"Why do it then, if it was going to make you feel guilty afterwards?"   
  
"Because I'm clearly as weak and pathetic and utterly worthless as you appear to be."   
  
"I thought you'd left the old self-destructiveness of guilt behind years ago." Knowing what he was really referring to, she said,   
  
"Some things never go completely away, John, no matter how much you think you've buried them." Wanting to return the conversation to safer ground, he asked,   
  
"so, why did you want the photos?"   
  
"Why do you think I wanted them?" She answered in true lawyer fashion. Realising that he'd walked in to that one, he said,   
  
"Well, for all I know, you might have liked the idea of seeing me and Jo together. It was just a shame that all you got was us sleeping." She stared at him for a moment, quite unable to say a word.   
  
"You must be joking! I don't think there's anything I'd rather see less than you taking Miss Oxfam through the finer points of the Kama Sutra." John laughed.   
  
"Aha, the lady doth protest too much, methinks."   
  
"And don't quote Shakespeare at me."   
  
"Why, it's true. Had I known I would be posing for incriminating evidence, I'd have at least given you something worth looking at."   
  
"You're insufferable!" She said, now thoroughly exasperated.   
  
"So, you've never once wondered what she looks like in bed?" He was goading her and she knew it, but to back down would be to go against everything she'd ever believed in where John was concerned.   
  
"No, not in the slightest." Detecting the merest hint of a blush, he said,   
  
"Why don't I believe you?"   
  
"Now I know why I married you, it was so that I wouldn't be forced to appear opposite you in court."   
  
"She's not quite as adventurous as you," He said, still trying to get some semblance of a useful reaction out of her.   
  
"Want me to tell her you said that, do you?"   
  
"Not particularly," He conceded.   
  
"Well, then, drop it."   
  
"Just indulge me for a moment."   
  
"I've learnt by now that indulging you is always a dangerous thing to do."   
  
"Have you ever thought about going to bed with another woman?"   
  
"Not in this life time, no," She said, but the colour had risen to her cheeks to again betray her.   
  
"Never even once?" He cajoled. Knowing she was utterly lost, she hid her blushing face under the duvet. This at last seemed to bring him to his senses. It was a very rare thing for George to be embarrassed by anything sexual. She was broadmindedness personified, and although there had been specific boundaries, there hadn't been much they hadn't tried at least once in those crazy but wonderful early days of their marriage. He lifted the duvet away from her face. Her eyes were bright with brief tears. He gently wiped them away with a finger.   
  
"This isn't like you," He said softly, all the barrage gone.   
  
"It just didn't occur to you, did it," She said, furious with herself for revealing her secret. "That there might be one thing, one little part of me that I would rather you didn't know. My occasional fantasy of another woman is something I will never do anything about. So, before you get any ridiculous ideas about me and Miss Oxfam, forget it." this possibility hadn't yet occurred to him and his eyes widened in surprise. This was quickly followed by the wickedest grin she'd ever seen.   
  
"Wow!" Was all he seemed able to say.   
  
"Yes," Drawled George, "I thought you'd like that idea. But get it in to your head right this minute, that the answer is definitely no way." She put as much emphasis on her last two words as she could muster. She inwardly cursed herself for having inadvertently suggested it to him, but she knew he'd have arrived at the idea soon enough on his own.   
  
"Oh, I don't know," He said, his eyes full of mischief once again. "that thought will keep me quiet for weeks."   
  
"I've no doubt," Replied George dryly. "And don't even contemplate saying a word to Jo about this."   
  
"Why not, she might have had thoughts in the same direction, you never know."   
  
"Jo Mills is as straight as you assumed Karen Betts and Yvonne Atkins to be. Besides, Jo really isn't my type."   
  
"Oh, what is your type?" Her thoughts briefly straying to Karen, George vowed to give him no more information whatsoever.   
  
"You're really loving this, aren't you."   
  
"Discovering something new about you after all these years? Yes, I am."   
  
"Well, I wish you hadn't."   
  
"Why didn't you want to tell me?" He asked. "Let's face it, nothing can be as bad as you wanting me to pick you up like a whore from a street corner in King's Cross and really treat you like one of those women." George couldn't help laughing.   
  
"I was drunk when I said that. Anyway, I'd hoped you'd forgotten." Then she turned serious. "I knew you'd love the idea. I thought you'd be continuously fantasising about me and god knows how many of your other conquests and it isn't something I've ever considered putting in to practice. I find the occasional woman sexually attractive, that's all it is."   
  
"I'm sorry for forcing it out of you," He said, really meaning it for once. She laughed mirthlessly.   
  
"What's new. I'm actually amazed I've kept it from you this long."   
  
"I promise not to talk about it."   
  
"John, I learnt a long time ago to take your promises with a pinch of salt. So please don't make them." They lay quiet for a while, with him gently running her hair through his fingers.   
  
"I wouldn't have missed this for the world," He said softly.   
  
"Much as I know I'll regret it in the morning, neither would I."   
  
"Don't feel too bad about Jo. If there's any guilt involved here, it's mine, not yours."   
  
"Just don't take her too much for granted." As they listened to the soft tones of Berlioz coming from the small Cd-player on George's dressing-table, John was forced to wonder why she was pleading Jo's case all of a sudden. Thinking of Jo led him to thinking about court which in turn reminded him of where George had been that day.   
  
"You never told me how you got on at Larkhall," He said, praying that his unorthodox punishment had done the trick.   
  
"You'll have to see next time I'm before you," She replied, a soft smile playing over her lips.   
  
"And talking of badly behaved people, why did you think I was Lover Boy this evening?"   
  
"Because when he moved out, his key was the only thing he conveniently forgot to leave behind."   
  
"Typical," Remarked John, vowing to go and retrieve it at the first opportunity he had. As they gradually drifted to sleep in each other's arms, George could already feel the suffocating weight of guilt beginning to creep over her. Where Jo was concerned, it wasn't a feeling she was used to accommodating. But Jo deserved better than this from her. Jo had offered her an olive branch after the Neil incident. Not in so many words of course, but the gesture had been obvious. George had taken it by agreeing to work with Jo on the Karen Betts case. but it looked like she'd just thrown all that away, and all because she couldn't resist the pull of the only man who'd ever really satisfied her. 


	94. Part Ninety Four

Part Ninety Four   
  
George was floating in and out of a dream in which golden visions swam before her eyes and, inside her, that heightened feeling of physical satisfaction and sexual contentment felt natural to her and a normal part of her life. Outside the tall, narrow windows of their hotel in the ancient artistic Montmartre district of that fascinating city, the early morning sounds of the Parisian streets became a lazy background chorus to her physical union with John. Every minute spent on that holiday was on a slow moving idyll where they drifted through the days in the sights and sounds of Paris and the heat of the nights where they shared their double bed. They were first married together there by the exquisite feel of each other's skins before they performed the formal ceremony in the ancient church which only told them what they knew already. Oh yes, John was a wonderful lover at night and her life could only become more perfect than it was already. She felt the twin shapes of her engagement and marriage rings proudly on her finger as she delicately applied nail varnish as part of her morning ritual. She looked sideways at John as he lay there, his eyes only for that enchanting semi dressed vision, She remembered that, of course, she was on her honeymoon just recently married to the man who had given her so much satisfaction in her life and that they had come back to their favourite city.  
  
John looked so different today in his immaculate grey suit complete with top hat alongside her as her long golden hair flowed down her back over her exquisite white lace wedding dress. Daddy, of course, was huffing and puffing as usual even then but was obviously proud to walk up the aisle with his own daughter on his arm to give her away. She was to marry a rising young barrister with good prospects. It was such a good match, so all her relatives said at the champagne reception afterwards.   
  
She remembered in that delirious haze sitting outside in one of the endless cafes that adorned the wide streets. It was so civilised to spend the afternoon drinking red wine, which sparkled with their conversation, and a light breeze stirred the overhead canopy. Nearby, a guitar player's steel strings were strummed rhythmically against the haunting tones of the gypsy violinist as he flicked his dancing notes up and down the scales in a cascade of notes. The singer's French accented voice urgently and stridently declaimed over the compulsive rhythm that  
  
'Here comes the story of the hurricane   
  
the man the authorities came to blame  
  
for something that he never done   
  
put in a prison cell but one time he could have been  
  
the champion of the world.'   
  
She knew that John, like her, was dedicated to the music of the ancients written down so many years ago upon the five parallel lines, the dots and the upright stems in a language that they shared, she on the piano and him on his violin and his outrageous seductive charm that they would make music together the very first time that they got to know each other. Nevertheless, his inquisitive ear picked out the strange way that the notes rose and fell up and down the scale in a primitively fascinating way. The words of the song spoke of his dreams of social justice, John talking then in the way that he always did. She smiled to herself in satisfaction, half-listening, as it was not the theories that were alluring but John himself as she expounded them. Her piano and his violin would make music together but his Bob Dylan and her Abba, their pop music of the day, made a strange combination. Somehow everything fitted together in their lives, just the two of them alone to make of the future what they wanted. She felt young and life was opening its gates to a life of paradise.  
  
Paris was the setting for their love which had an aching intensity about it, as John masterfully guided them round that magic city and half of him expounded the flashing idealistic dreams in an age when all was shiny minted and brand new between them. She could hear John's deep musical voice even now as she stretched herself out luxuriously in that Paris hotel. John would be there for her always. She knew that to be one of those unalterable destinies of her life.  
  
"Wake up, George. We've got a busy day ahead of us."   
  
"Not now, John, darling. We've got all day to go round the Louvre." She murmured sleepily, one eye a fraction open and blinking at the sunlight. She stretched out an arm to smooth the tangle of fair hair on her pillow but somehow today, that did not seem to be where she expected it to be.  
  
The trouble was that George wasn't a morning person and had never been the easiest woman to wake. John lay across George's bed and heard George's reply as she lay there, the half smile on her face at peace with herself with that Mona Lisa quality. He had read books describing that quality and at last got to satisfy his curiosity. He was perplexed at her talk about the Louvre gallery. They had not been to Paris for many years.  
  
"We've got to make a move now even though this time, you won't have to take the tube to work and have some lecherous old man leering at you."  
  
That snapped George awake in a second. For a split second, George thought that he was referring to the clean clinical Paris Metro that they rode round in their discovery of the city. Then, the full horror came back to her of being squashed in the squalor of the London underground. The frustrated angry feelings welled up inside her as she remembered vainly calling out to some deaf cretinous jobsworth in a uniform to ask the way. She needed to know which direction she had to fight her way through the crowds to get to the right platform in this plague ridden smelly rabbit warren. In all her life, she had always been able to get her voice to carry at full volume to convey her wishes and to threaten unspeakable vengeance to anyone who dared to cross her. Her nanny was the first unfortunate victim of the well-hurled rattle being thrown out of the pram and her life after this was variation of this syndrome.  
  
"What on earth are you doing here, John?" George snapped in as heartfelt way that any Negro blues singer could possibly convey with wailing harmonica, whining slide guitar and pain racked singing. Not that the relative aesthetics of the electric Chicago blues of Howling Wolf, Elmore James or Muddy Waters would have had any possible appeal to her. All she knew was that this impossible infuriating man was so cheerful and bright, first thing. He always had been but it didn't matter then somehow.  
  
"I gave you three extremely good orgasms last night. Don't you remember?" John said quietly as he spotted the well-known danger signs. So you did," Drawled George, her face softening for a moment at the memory of his utterly addictive touch. Then, her face hardened again. Her dream had been so vivid, that she could have been back in those hedonistic days of their early marriage. But then he'd spoilt her dream. Observing her returning frown, he said,   
  
"Still if you are regretting everything………….."  
  
"I don't." The heartfelt tones wrenched from her, expressed all her desires for the one man who had once meant everything in her life. It was impossible for them to live together as she knew from her bitter experience of his infidelities. A traitorous voice within her was wondering if it was possible for them to ever live apart and be as really divorced from each other as the court order said in print that they were. A bittersweet flavour of her dreams still hung around like some heady perfume as she reflected on her guilt at her behaviour to Jo last night. This feeling grated up against her accumulated anger that, so many years ago, Jo had come between her and her Paris idyll with John. This time in the morning was not the best for deep introspection and she brushed her neat barely shoulder length blond hair and her thoughts out of her mind while she looked at herself in the mirror. It was true that her face had not greatly changed since the days of her youth, the same aristocratic, finely carved lines but the woman inside had changed, especially so in the past few weeks. "Do you really not feel any guilt for cheating on Jo? Still," she added on a hard, cynical note, "You must be used to it after all this time."   
  
John was watching her nonchalantly as he buttoned up his stylish white shirt and slipped on his favourite grey Saville Row jacket, ready to face the day. He looked himself over in George's extremely wide and large dressing table mirror. Somehow the disheveling experience of a night of lovemaking with George didn't prevent him from looking his immaculate self, ready to climb into his judge's red robes the next day.  
  
"Why should I feel guilty? Jo knows what I am like," John said while looking in the mirror to straighten his tie.  
  
The reflection of George's large expressive eyes bounced back off the mirror and stared back at him. This was her way of saying that he was not able to avoid her eyes that easily.  
  
"The day may come when you may feel guilty, John. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes, not even for the largest barrister's fee I have ever earned if that ever happens to you." George's slowly articulated thoughtful voice and slightly open mouth breathed out the words.  
  
"Guilt was never your strong suit, George," John said in his self assured voice, confident of everything as usual. "You've only ever done one kind of guilt, and that had nothing to do with any one of my women."   
  
"Don't even go there," Said George, swivelling her gaze away from him.   
  
"You were always the one to tell me that you worked as a barrister as you were in it for the money and that my absurd devotion to principles was foolish."  
  
George looked over his shoulder to adjust her makeup after silently slipping her own clothes on. The man that she used to call the Deed was right though she loathed to admit it, those were her very words. There was such a similar mirror at the Old Bailey where she had first looked into her own soul and had started the process very dangerous to her of the beginnings of intellectual and emotional honesty. The only thing is that once you start the process, who knows where it will stop? Who knows how far the apple will fall?  
  
"You never told me how you got on at Larkhall," John graciously offered her a cup of coffee and adroitly steered the conversation onto a safer, more neutral topic.  
  
George took a large swig of the strong black cup of coffee that John had made her. With that inside her she was more able to face the day.  
  
"Do you know that I talked to a prostitute who told me that her earnings are enough to send her son to Marlborough College, the same school that Daddy went to?"   
  
John laughed out loud for a long time at that one. It appealed to his sense of what was apparently absurd happening to be the truth.  
  
"If we had had a son called Charles and had sent him to Marlborough College to follow in Daddy's footsteps, they might have been best friends. Who knows?"   
  
"I should think not, John," She snapped, her pervasive guilt being directed into a very convenient and habitual object of her anger. "If that had happened, I would have gone straight to the school and demanded from him that he must dissociate himself immediately from such unsuitable company."  
  
"I am only joking, George," John held up his hands in a gesture of surrender and calculated the precise pause necessary for George's anger to subside.   
  
"Did Karen Betts make you suitably contrite in your visit to Larkhall? I confess that I have never really thought up till now of what happened to all the men and women I have sent to prison," John spoke in a more serious vein.  
  
"Like I'd been buried alive for a week," George shuddered. "It's a completely different world which makes my problems seem small in comparison. I certainly admire Karen, the way she manages to cope with everything. I can't complain about the hospitality I received. I was even offered a gin and tonic - with ice and lemon naturally - by an inmate."   
  
"I take it that you won't need to revisit Larkhall compulsorily next time,"   
  
John replied, smiling and shaking his head in puzzlement at George's revelation. This dislocated his entire conception of what prison life was like. He had some vision of life behind bars and solid walls that was grim and stark having discounted the right wing press conception of a hotel, three meals a day and colour TV.  
  
George nodded as she opened her front door.  
  
"We are going in separate cars, John," George said frostily.  
  
"That is fine by me so long as your car doesn't break down like it did the other day," John said lightly and then flinched as one of George's best killer looks was directed his way.  
  
George led the way in her car to assert her independence from him and John was hard put to keep up with George's aggressive driving style as she sliced in on the umpteenth car that she had overtaken. He winced at the way that she blew her horn at dithering pedestrians on zebra crossings and timid learner drivers who were the special victim of her anger in their indecisiveness in simply being in her way and sticking rigidly to the speed limit. Oh well, he thought, George won't be coming his way on a motoring offence, it will be some unfortunate bumbling magistrate instead that will have to suffer one of her tirades.   
  
George's pulse was racing after her compulsion to arrive at court early to avoid the embarrassment of the other day when everything went so disastrously wrong. When she was most under pressure, the greater was her need to maintain a steely grip on her surroundings and, most of all, to exercise self-control. Nobody must see her when she looked less than perfect, when the expression on her face was out of control. Appearance to her was everything.   
  
Surprisingly, John's car drew up alongside hers only a few minutes later as she had finally got herself ready to face another day in court. Infuriatingly, it took him only a matter of seconds for him to be ready.  
  
"Are you coming, George?" he had the cheek to ask her.  
  
George clattered down the stone tiled corridor on her high heels after John whose long stride ate up the yards to the central court area. When she'd just about caught up with him, out of breath, she caught sight of Jo.  
  
"Hi Jo. If you don't mind, I want to have a word with the Deed before the trial starts. I won't be long." George smiled what she felt to be the most transparently false smile on her face which made her actions of last night as nakedly on display as she had been to John. It wouldn't have mattered 'back in the old days', as she was beginning to call them in her mind, the days when she and Jo were sworn enemies, the days when keeping up appearances was easy and when she didn't know how to behave differently.  
  
"That's no problem, George," Jo called out casually in a way that only made it worse for George.  
  
Despite her small stature, the force of her personality hustled him into his chambers where it propelled him into his chair and she stood facing him, breathing loudly.  
  
"How can you face Jo Mills and look her in the eye after what happened last night?" George opened the battle.   
  
"What happened last night was regrettable," John said in a low measured tone. "Perhaps you're right."  
  
"Oh! Why are you being so maddeningly reasonable about everything? Why don't you get angry, argue back at me like you always used to ever since we first met," George stormed, her opening sound being one of pent up fury tailing off to the faint memories of her dream which still seemed very real to her.  
  
"You know, you look beautiful when you're angry George," John's answer had that maddening hint of flirtatiousness, even at a moment like this.  
  
"You can't run away from yourself forever," George persisted, not quite knowing what she meant by that statement which popped out straight from her unconscious to the words which escaped her mouth.   
  
"no, and neither can you. I am very good at controlling my emotions as you know. I suggest that you do the same especially as we are both appearing in court very soon," John retorted as Coope entered the chamber to prepare him for his scarlet robes as the theatrical props so that he could pass judgement on others. George turned on her heel and let the sprung door shut behind her.  
  
The fading sunlight of a chill October evening dazzled John's eyes as he drove through the city traffic on the way to the House of Commons. It didn't take him long to walk to the car park to catch sight of the finely etched and detailed shape of Big Ben towering over the city streets. The similarly styled complex of the House of Commons nestled at the feet of the fine upstanding clock tower even though it dwarfed in turn the other grey stone buildings on the other side of the road. His mission was the public entrance to the building where generations of the more politically conscious had queued up in their endeavour to reassert the old fashioned human voice, human contact for the minutiae of the anonymous statistical findings of the modern day focus groups and opinion polls. He entered the huge stone mouth of the complex and patiently submitted to the security checks and the metal detector which told of an age where the blind anger and danger of the bomb was a fact of modern life. He made his way through to the Central Lobby which was a vast domed room which sparkled and dazzled in gold from which corridors ran off, north, south, east and west. Marbles statues of famous parliamentarians of the past added their solid roots to the myths of the oldest parliamentary democracy that he was taught in school, years ago. He wondered cynically whether or not his distinguished career would result in him being so dignified for immortality on public display somewhere and decided probably not. He made his way to the lobby clerk and gave in his name in connection with Neil Houghton and of his safe Labour constituency that he could afford to patronise from a distance being a busy cabinet minister.  
  
"It's John Deed for Mr Houghton," John explained. He looked like an average smartly dressed man at whom the bored clerk flicked up an eye and handed him the card to complete. He wondered what sort of political axe to grind this man had. "Judge John Deed," He added with a bit of an edge.  
  
Immediately, the man jumped into life and made the enquiries amongst the rabbit warren of England's seats of democracy.  
  
John sat back in one of the few comfortable chairs in the place which was clearly not designed for crowds of the public who wanted to lobby their MP. The logistics of this sort of direct democracy was clearly designed to be small scale, especially in an age before the electronic aids for tracing the respective MP were available.  
  
"John, this is an unexpected pleasure," drawled Neil. "Come, I'll show you to the House of Commons bar personally."  
  
The man is clearly rattled to see his worst nightmare pop up in an environment where he is worried about what I might say or do and he has good reason to feel that way, John thought. He is also nervous about his political cronies witnessing the sort of scene that he might create which might harm his image.  
  
"Can we talk somewhere private, Neil?" John asked politely.   
  
Neil led him past the ancient drawings of history in the making commissioned by the ruling class who also decided what went into the history books. He pushed open the double swing doors and, once inside, John didn't beat about the bush.  
  
"I want the front door key to George's house. She told me you've got it. Come on, hand it over."  
  
"What, so you can go round whenever you want as a change from seeing your current girlfriend?" Sneered Neil.   
  
"No," Came the contemptuous reply. George must have been very bored to have taken up with a drip like this. "In actual fact, George is nervous about security ever since you hit her and doesn't like loose keys floating around. Who knows, some burglar might come and steal the "Adam and Eve painting" which hangs in her bedroom. It is a fine painting though I say it myself."  
  
Neil turned white with anger while he fumbled in his inside pocket for the key. Anything to get rid of the man. He had thought that after sending flowers round, it might be useful for him to make the personal approach but it looked like he was wasting time that was precious to him.   
  
"How the devil do you know about the picture, John?" Neil's hostile edgy voice demanded of John.  
  
"George told me that she needed something more inspiring to look at when she was in bed with you," John grinned. "Thank you, Neil, for your guided tour."  
  
And then he was gone. 


	95. Part Ninety Five

Part Ninety Five   
  
On the Saturday evening, John had taken Jo out for dinner. He had spent some time thinking about all that George had said yesterday, and knew that Jo did deserve better. He just wasn't in the habit of having his misdeeds pointed out to him by George. If he'd done something wrong, he liked to find that out for himself, not have it rammed down his throat by someone who was only being so angry with him to hide her own guilt in the matter. He had felt a strong desire to make up for what Jo didn't know he'd done. Once they'd returned to Jo's inconspicuous little house, it hadn't taken them long to progress to what he knew he'd never failed at, except for last Tuesday when he hadn't been able to reduce George to her usual shuddering submission, but the less thought about that the better. Jo was as eager for him tonight as he was for her. They hadn't spent a night together since the previous weekend, and they were both heartily thankful that Mark, Jo's youngest, was out for the evening. But Jo soon realised that something was different about tonight. John utterly worshipped her, giving her body every little attention she desired. He didn't let her even consider returning the favour until he'd brought her to a gasping peak more than once. when he finally joined their bodies as one, she rode the waves of pleasure with him, thinking that she just might no the reason for his total devotion to giving her pleasure. He had never ever been lax in that department, but he did occasionally surpass himself, usually after he'd had either a one-night stand or a brief fling with some other woman and he wanted to make it up to her. Afterwards, as they lay close in her large bed, the words on the CD coming from the player on her dressing-table began to register with her. This was a new singer, someone Jo had heard recently and immediately taken a liking too. She had an almost child-like voice and sang a mixture of blues, jazz and soft love songs.   
  
"How can you let me watch you sleep, then break my dreams the way you do.   
  
How can I have got in so deep, why did I fall in love with you."   
  
As Jo heard these beautifully haunting words, she gazed at John who had drifted in to a light doze. She was watching him sleep, and she thought that again, he'd broken her dreams. Jo knew that when it came to bed, she wasn't half as interesting and adventurous as probably George and most of his other women had been, but she'd never thought of herself as any the less sexually attractive because of that. She just didn't like to stray too far from the norm, that was all. But still he had to do it, he just had to go and sleep with someone else. For the life of her, she'd never been able to work out why. In those desperate, early days of their affair, when both of them had still been married, John had made her feel like a woman again, not just a wife to a terminally ill man or just a mother to his children. She couldn't explain why she loved John, but she did, more than she'd ever loved anyone in her life. Even though she was used to his sporadic infidelity, it still hurt her enormously every time. It always made her feel as if she simply wasn't good enough for him. The realisation that he must have been with someone else recently brought tears to her eyes. He must have sensed her pain, because his gentle hold on her slightly tightened.   
  
"Who is she?" Asked Jo, knowing he was awake.   
  
"I'm lost," He replied.   
  
"You've never been lost in your life," Responded Jo, anger creeping steadily in to her tone. "Who were you trying to exorcise from your memory this evening."   
  
"No one," He said, the half truth giving him the ability to look her in the eye. No matter how much both he and George might regret what had happened this last week, John wouldn't ever seek to banish its sweetness from his mind.   
  
The song once again insinuated its way in to Jo's mind.   
  
"How can you make me fall apart, then break my fall with loving lies.   
  
It's so easy to break a heart, it's so easy to close your eyes."   
  
Was that what she'd been doing all this time, keeping her eyes closed to his constant betrayal of everything she felt for him.   
  
"Don't lie to me, John," Jo said firmly. "Don't you think I know you well enough by now to know when you're feeling guilty for something that you'd rather I didn't know?"   
  
"Was I that bad?" He asked, knowing he wasn't but trying to distract her.   
  
"No," She said, her voice taking on the flippant edge that he was used to hearing from George. "That's the point."   
  
"Are you saying I usually am?" He asked in mock indignation.   
  
"No, of course not. You were different, the way you are when you are trying to make up for something or someone." Knowing that further denials were pretty futile, he simply lay and held her, not liking the way he'd hurt her any more than she did. But women were just his one blind spot. The chase, the persuasion, the feeling of being loved by some random stranger, or in this case his ex-wife, provided a sexual frisson that just didn't exist in any long-term relationship.   
  
"I love you," He said after a while. Jo laughed mirthlessly.   
  
"You've got a bloody funny way of showing it sometimes." Then the words of the CD again caught her attention.   
  
"You are the tiger burning bright, deep in the forest of my night."   
  
The twisting round of the quote from Blake struck her as ironic, especially as Blake's title had been The Songs Of Innocence, Proverbs From Hell. Was her part in their relationship a song of innocence, and his infidelity a proverb from hell? She thought so sometimes. "That's what I used to think you were," Said Jo. "You've always made me feel whole, real somehow. But I can't go on like this. Something has got to change, John. Your sleeping with total strangers hurts like hell." The urge to confess to her that this hadn't been a total stranger was incredibly strong, but he fought to bury it. "It's the not knowing that hurts the most," Continued Jo. "I'm never sure that you won't find the next one far more appealing and let's face it, far more interesting in bed than I am."   
  
"Have I ever said I don't find you interesting? Have I ever said I don't love everything about you?" He asked. "I've loved you for the last twenty odd years."   
  
"Then why is it not enough."   
  
"I don't know," He said quietly.   
  
"Well, I suggest you start thinking about it, because I really don't know how many more of your little conquests I can put up with. I'm only human, John, and there's only so much uncertainty I can take." As he gently ran his fingers through her hair to ease away some of the tension, he wondered where they would all end up, the three of them, because this wasn't just about him and Jo any more, it was about George as well.   
  
As promised, Karen and Yvonne were looking after Roisin's children. Karen had made them all homemade pizzas which went down a treat with Michael and Niamh. Michael had been perfectly happy to go to bed and continue reading Harry Potter, but Niamh had insisted on both Karen and Yvonne reading her a story. She'd fallen asleep in the middle of Yvonne's, and they'd left her to her dreams. Across the landing, Michael looked set in for at least another hour's reading.   
  
"I might have to read that book if it's so good," commented Karen. Yvonne laughed.   
  
"He's been itching to get back to it all evening." They went down stairs and took a bottle of wine in to Yvonne's lounge.   
  
"They're good kids," Said Karen, lighting a cigarette.   
  
"I remember the time Aiden brought them to see Roisin when she was inside," Replied Yvonne. "Cassie thought it was the perfect opportunity to enlighten Aiden as to their living arrangements, and he told Roisin that he wouldn't bring them to see her again. I think she'd really have gone under if they hadn't got out."   
  
"Are you giving Snowball credit for something then?" Asked Karen dryly.   
  
That's a twisted bit of logic for a Saturday night."   
  
"I know. But if that bloody fire hadn't happened, and if Cassie and Roisin hadn't rescued Grayling, they'd still be inside now." Yvonne shuddered.   
  
"And those two beautiful kids would be with her bastard ex-husband." They stayed quiet for a while, just listening to some soft music, until Yvonne asked,   
  
"How did George Channing get on the other day? You never told me what happened." Karen roused herself out of the content, relaxed, after dinner drowsiness and grinned.   
  
"Well, she was offered a gin and tonic by one of the Costa cons," Yvonne laughed.   
  
"I take it she said no?"   
  
"Yes, and she discovered that Julie Saunders' son goes to the same public school that her father used to attend. The look on her face was priceless."   
  
"I bet. If anything could bring that one of her high horse, that would." "She's not so bad," Said Karen quietly. "It was interesting seeing her let down her guard."   
  
"How do you mean?"   
  
"She was horrified at the idea that all inmates are routinely given a psychiatric assessment, and she almost had a panic attack when she was presented with the tiny size of the Julies' cell. I think it was not being able to see out of the window because she's so small that did it. But to top everything off, Fenner disobeyed my order to keep Al out of the way, and George was, but for my intervention, almost attacked."   
  
"Shit!"   
  
"Quite. Grayling wasn't amused to say the least, though as usual it was me and not Fenner who got the dressing down."   
  
"Grayling has to see what Fenner's really like. He can't keep getting away with shit like that."   
  
"Oh, you know Grayling, he's got a total blind spot where Fenner's concerned."   
  
"Yeah, it's called his dick. They're both as bad as each other." Then, Yvonne seemed to remember something. "Oh yeah, I bought you something yesterday." Karen looked intrigued. Yvonne walked over to her desk and dug about in one of the drawers, emerging with a small Waterstones bag. Handing it to Karen, Yvonne watched as she looked inside. Karen removed a hardback copy of the new Scarpetta novel by Patricia Cornwell, entitled Blow Fly. Karen smiled.   
  
"Thank you," She said, pulling Yvonne back down on to the sofa to give her a long kiss. "I thought this was coming out fairly soon."   
  
"Well, I figured that as you've got all the others in your bookcase, you'd quite like this one," Said Yvonne, kissing her back. "I was walking passed Waterstones and I saw an advert for it in the window. Look inside," She prompted. Karen opened the front cover and was greeted with the following inscription: To wile away all those hours when Body Bag gets too much for you. Karen laughed.   
  
"I'll have to make sure I don't leave it on my desk, open at the front page." Karen put the book on the coffee table.   
  
"I don't deserve you," She said softly.   
  
"Of course you do," murmured Yvonne. "It's me who's incredibly lucky." After a while of simply being close with each other, Yvonne said,   
  
"there's something I want to show you." She got up, and retrieved something from the top drawer of her desk. It looked like a letter. Yvonne handed it to Karen and simply gestured her to read. Karen was greeted by the familiar sight of a prison issue envelope containing the return address of Wormwood Scrubs. Thinking she knew who this must have been from, she removed the letter, also written on prison issue notepaper. She read in silence.   
  
"Dear Mum,   
  
You know why I'm writing this, because I'm too much of a coward to say it in person. Dad would be thoroughly ashamed of me, wouldn't he. No Atkins is supposed to take the easy way out, and all that. But I can't do it, Mum, I can't go on day in and day out like this. It's not prison, it's being like I am. So, I guess this is the first in a long list of things I'm supposed to be sorry for. The second being that you didn't deserve what I did. I am sorry I put you and Lauren through all that, but I had to do it. Snowball was the craziest girl I've ever met, but I loved her. I don't expect you to understand that, but there it is. I know I haven't been the kind of son you really wanted, but then I never could live up to everything you and dad brought me up to believe. Sure, I inherited all the shit parts of dad's nature, and not enough of yours, but Atkins family values just weren't for me.   
  
I've written this letter, not only to try and put the record straight once and for all, but to ask you to do something for me. You remember on the second day of the trial, when Karen Betts was in the witness box, that stupid git who was representing us, tried to question Karen about a supposedly fake rape allegation. Mum, there wasn't nothing fake about that allegation. Fenner did rape her, I'm certain of it. There's things you learn about women, like what's normal, and what isn't, and the way she was with me that first night really wasn't normal, in any sense of the word. A woman asking you to be rough with her, that's nothing new, but this was different. I asked her afterwards what it had all been about, and she said she was laying a few ghosts. Mum, she was trying to punish herself for what had happened with Fenner. I'm guessing she thought it was her fault, but he's the biggest shit going and deserves nothing but a dose of the Atkins justice. You're probably wondering why I'm telling you all this. I've got to say it now, because after tonight, I won't ever get another chance. She was sat in the public gallery with you all through the trial. Mum, please take care of her for me. She's still hurting after what that bastard Fenner did to her, and she needs looking after. I ain't asking you to finish Fenner off, because I know you won't. But I need you to keep an eye on Karen for me. I hate what I did to her and to you, and I can't ever put any of that right. But if somehow, you can see that she's all right, I'll feel like I've at least tried to put something right.   
  
I'm sorry I wouldn't see you when you asked to see me today, but I was angry. I couldn't handle the fact that you'd stood up against one of your own. But then, you never were a true Atkins. You were always above all that. Even though you did all that stuff for dad and brought me and Lauren up to follow in his footsteps, it wasn't really you. I've been losing control of everything in my life, probably ever since I met Snowball, and I guess this was my way of having a bit of control again. I'm sorry you didn't get to say whatever it was you wanted to say, and I'm sorry for every other bad thing I've ever done to you.   
  
I love you Mum,   
  
Ritchie."   
  
Karen put the letter back in the envelope and handed it back to Yvonne.   
  
"Could do with a testimony like that now," Karen said, on a mirthless laugh.   
  
"I just wanted to show you that no matter how hard this case gets, because it is going to get harder, that I'm not the only one who believes in you. You've got another meeting with George on Monday, and I know that every time you see either her or Jo about this, you're questioning whether or not you should be going ahead with it."   
  
"I think Ritchie got his intuition from you," Karen said, marvelling at both Yvonne's and Ritchie's sensitivity.   
  
"Yeah, maybe he did, probably the one good thing I gave him."   
  
"This has to succeed," Said Karen. "I've got to put Fenner behind bars for good. Not just for me, but for every other woman he's screwed up."   
  
"I know" Said Yvonne gently. "But don't lose sight of the fact that he's always wriggled away in the past, and with a decent barrister, it's always possible he could do it again. When you see George, ask her about anything Ritchie might have said to her about you. You know that I believe you, because I've got no reason not too. But I think you need some kind of confirmation that someone else does, or did. Apart from Mark, who was too close to the situation to notice something like that, Ritchie was the only one who knew how you were with a bloke after Fenner. Just ask her. I doubt there's anything in any statement of his that could be used, but you never know."   
  
"You're amazing," Said Karen, pressing her cheek against Yvonne's. "You didn't have to show me that letter. It was something personal from Ritchie to you. But you did. I'm not used to someone doing almost anything for me."   
  
"Well, get used to it," Said Yvonne gently but firmly. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, and nothing or no one, and especially not Fenner, is ever going to hurt you again as long as I'm around." 


	96. Part Ninety Six

A/N: Some viewers may find the following scene disturbing. I should know, I've just betaed it. (Kristine).   
  
Part Ninety Six   
  
It was a nice relaxing Sunday afternoon when Fenner checked his watch and, regretfully, decided to tare himself away from the convivial scene at his local pub.  
  
"I'm sorry lads, but the match is due to kick off on the telly in half an hour's time. I could do with an early night as I've got an early shift at work. I'll be here same time next week and we'll sink a few more pints together."  
  
There were cries of disappointment from the crowd as Fenner was a popular man in his local. The older crowd of regulars did help create a nice atmosphere. The landlord found that he and his crowd spent their money freely and were also well behaved not like some of the young rowdies who got tanked up and aggressive. It wasn't just the lads these days as some of the women were as bad as anyone. His pub was luckier not to have the flashing lights and loud music and being a bit off the beaten track, didn't attract the worst sort of trouble makers.   
  
In a haze of contentment, Fenner sank back into the driving seat of his car. It was a sunny day outside and he had a nice contented weekend. Fluffy white clouds ambled their way across the sky and a nice cool breeze blew gently. Work wasn't so bad these days though. He had decided today when he was drinking with the lads to take life as it came and not to get so jumpy. He'd had a bad patch when he was thinking that someone was out to get him and he had some bad nights but when it came down to it, he ought to trust his survival instincts more. He had had bad enough times when Stewart was after him but he'd seen her off out of Larkhall. Betts was the same sort of dangerous woman and he didn't like the feel of those toffee nosed barristers coming round Larkhall one bit. All he needed to do was to keep his eyes open at work and take it easy when he had the chance to off duty. That way, he wouldn't get all wound up and end up hitting the hard stuff. He'd been around long enough and with his jailcraft, he'd outlast them all and collect his lump sum pension in the end. He even resolved not to shag any more women who had the remotest connection with Larkhall as all his women problems had stemmed from mixing work and pleasure with all the temptations right under his nose.   
  
With that comforting thought, he turned the key in the ignition and headed off back home. That would give him just enough time to fetch a few cans of lager from the fridge, put his feet up in his chair and get settled for the match. The papers told him that it would be a hard fought match which was just what he liked. His car turned smoothly into the line of traffic. Just at this moment, a woman steered her black Rover into the same line of traffic and was heading for her own destination like any other motorist.  
  
Fenner shoved on a cassette for some music to get him into the mood for the match and Status Quo's "Rocking all over the world" seemed to fit the bill just nicely. It gave him that feeling of mastery and control of his world and of getting him in the feeling for the big match. He'd go out later for a takeaway meal as the cobs and packets of crisps he'd eaten at the pub were quite enough for now. As he drove, his car took him along the nice secure, familiar environment of a typical Sunday afternoon, the same as any Sunday in his life. It gave him that feeling of contentment and security, running down the familiar track.   
  
He pulled his car up outside his house and locked his car up safely. You couldn't take things for granted these days, as there had been the car that was stolen from one of his neighbours and was later found torched. He felt in his pockets for his house key but the bloody thing was stuck right at the bottom underneath his wallet.  
  
"Come on, out you bloody well come," He grumbled to himself.  
  
"Just what I was going to say, Fenner. We're going for a little ride." An ice-cold female voice spoke into his ear and a lump of metal was jammed into his back.   
  
Instantly, Fenner's blood ran cold. Where the hell had this bitch sprung from?  
  
"Atkins!" Fenner exclaimed.  
  
"Good guess, Fenner," She sneered. "You turn around and start walking down the road to your right."  
  
"You're making a mistake, love. I've got a football match to watch on telly. The kickoff is due to start in a bit," Fenner replied, his voice betraying less of the fear than he really felt. Whatever tight corners he had been in, this was the tightest.   
  
"You're going to have to miss the match and read all about it in the papers. There are six bullets in this gun. If I have to use them on you, I'll use them all on you with pleasure. Now move it." The hard, cold tone of the reply broke Fenner's willingness to argue.   
  
'So he's still with us, old lover boy Atkins,' the ghosts of memories came back to him of a hard cynical Principal Officer talking so lightly of life and death right after a routine PO's meeting.  
  
"They've removed the bullet, the one he stopped from blowing my brains out," Karen had replied contemptuously, speaking of the day when Snowball had stuck a gun in her back.  
  
She pointed the car keys at the black car and the car locks opened, enabling her to prod Fenner into the passenger seat. With the pistol aimed menacingly at Fenner, she got into the car and the internal door locks clicked shut on him. Fenner's heart sank to hear the ominous click which was much softer than the clang of a prison cell door but just as effective. A ghastly flashback jumped into his mind of when he was locked in a cell with Shell Dockley, another vengeful psycho-bitch who wanted to finish him off. The only difference was that there was no one to raise the alarm when everything looked so normal with a woman driving him around on a normal sunny afternoon. The great British Public will be glued to their television watching the excitement of the premier league football match, far too busy for any idea of acting as a good neighbour.   
  
"Don't even think of trying any heroics. I've got you covered and I'm not taking my eye off you for a single second while I'm driving. Remember, an Atkins never misses."  
  
She felt an enormous leap of exhaltation pulsing through her entire body, through her nerves and feelings that filled her with joy. Hardly any trace of her feelings was noticeable to any observer, even Fenner, beyond a slightly heightened intake of breath when she breathed . It was as if she were a big game hunter that had stalked a dangerous wild animal in its native environment and she had spent hours concealed up a tree, hidden in the undergrowth, anxious at all costs that she would not blow her cover. She had studied the habits and the favourite paths with infinite care, getting everything mapped out in her mind for so long. This morning, she had staked out her prey as he had strolled into the pub and had run over in her mind the possible way that her prey could break cover and bolt. It was the massive exercise of infinite patience, absolute attention to detail and razor sharp concentration that had prepared herself for this moment. She had driven carefully, threading her way through the traffic, tailing the car as she knew best and had parked her car just that sufficient distance away from him so that she would not be noticed but enough to keep an eye on him. She had walked up behind him with the lightness of step of a panther and had made her move when Fenner's head was bent down, looking for his front door key when he had paid least attention to what was going on around him. Yet, she knew that her prey was watchful, dangerous, waiting for the slightest slip on her part to turn the tables. She knew that this had happened before and this time around, she must not make that slip.  
  
With her gun held in her left hand and pointing at Fenner, she drove them down the same road where Fenner, only five short minutes beforehand, had driven without a care in the world with nothing on his mind but what he was going to do on a Sunday afternoon. The Clapham street that he lived on that represented home slipped away from him and was gone.  
  
Fenner was sweating visibly as the streets flashed by. No one knew where the hell he was, not on a Sunday afternoon, for a man who was rootless, who came and went as he pleased according to a lifestyle that was centred on himself, not Marilyn, not the kids who might as well be a million miles away for all the contact he kept with them. Today, the most frightening day of his life had no prospect of any end in sight that he could control, not with about the worst enemy that he had ever made in his life. The feeling that he was totally in the power and control of another human being froze him with horror.  
  
"Why are you doing this, Atkins?" He mumbled in a more subdued tone than he was used to talking in.  
  
She laughed out loud at the absurdity of such a question which gave her the chance to play the sort of deadly mind games that he had used on his victims.  
  
"You have a good think about all you've done wrong in your life, Fenner. Go on, you try to work it out," came the vengeful, reply, dripping with total scorn. Make him guess and make him sweat her manic yet controlled thinking reacted. This was going to be a war of psychology, she reckoned, and she thought that she was up to this one.  
  
Fenner's normally sharp mind blanked out and his memory refused to work. He had had extensive dealings with the Atkins family over the past years and an injury to any one of them was an injury to all of them, father, mother, daughter and son. He knew that what distinguished this family from any other family that was involved, or associated with crime was that unquenchable thirst for vengeance and the breathtaking scope with criminal contacts to ensure that the victim ended up as part of the ready mix concrete foundations for the latest tower block. Flashing through his mind was the account he had heard from Di Barker of the pizza delivery for Charlie outside the Old Bailey and that, in broad daylight he was gunned down and what is more no one was charged.   
  
"I….I….I was only doing my job in stopping that escape out of the pub window or the rope ladder over the prison walls. Any other prison officer would have done the same. Betts helped me second time around."  
  
Her cold laughter told Fenner that he was a mile off the mark while he racked his brains to try and figure this puzzle out. If he could only work out the answer, he might stand a chance.  
  
All the time, she manoeuvred the car expertly along the built up streets of London and never once while she changed gear was that sinister black shape of a gun not pointed directly at Fenner. He knew that she had enough peripheral vision to be able to spot in one second any move by him to wrest the gun from out of her grasp. There wasn't much traffic on the road so that there was never an instance that the car slowed down to give him a chance to escape. Fenner's heart sank at the way he was kept as securely captive as any prisoner was kept banged up in segregation. This evil bitch knew far too much for his good exactly what she was doing.  
  
The first rush of excitement was dying down in her as time went on. She felt more secure as her plan was unfolding, exactly as planned. She was driving the car into the heart of London and the roadsigns indicated that she was bang on course. The huge twin edifices of Tower Bridge loomed ahead and she disappeared into the first archway to reveal out of the corner of her eye, the ancient River Thames, far below her, glittering in the sun, swirling waters forever on the move. This was a signpost to the North side of the city and what she must do.  
  
"Well, have you guessed, Fenner?" came the mocking question. "I'll help you out. What is the worst deed you have ever done in your life?"   
  
Fenner's mind was a confused blur as his past flashed past him in a kaleidoscope of faces, some smiling, some scared, some angry, some indifferent. A confused cacophony of voices of different accents At the centre was that only solid certainty that he knew, Larkhall prison.  
  
"Don't tell me that there is so much shit in your life that you can't work it out?"   
  
"You don't help me by pointing that gun at me. Where are you taking me, Atkins?" Fenner counter questioned.  
  
"You'll find out soon enough. We're not that far away and when we get there, you won't have to worry about anything in your life anymore. I'll make sure of that." Her slowly articulated voice, stretching out the syllables conveyed an air of chilling menace to say that there were no limits to what she was prepared to do to carry out justice, Atkins style. The superficial air of reassurance was only there to taunt him.  
  
'He's the biggest shit going and deserves nothing but a dose of the Atkins justice' were words that were written in words of red blood in her mind. Why the hell can't the evil bastard work it out, she thought contemptuously. He doesn't seem so big and tough out of his uniform and outside Larkhall.   
  
"If you can't work it out, Fenner, tell you what, I'll tell you. Later on."   
  
Fenner was getting confused as to where they were. The car had cut through all the ancient commercial parts of London and the places where all the tourists went. The sign of Hackney flashed up and still this crazy woman drove like someone possessed. Fenner had never come across anything like this before. That was what made everything so frightening.  
  
"Just think, Fenner," Came the voice with that evil laugh. "If Stewart had sacked you and you were signing on the dole right now, you wouldn't be in this mess. You've only yourself to blame for the trouble you are in. You never learn, do you."  
  
This woman was a demon. She knew everything about him. That was one thing that he found so scary. He did not let the world know what Jim Fenner felt, what he schemed for, what he covered up and the left hand know what the right hand was doing, not even his own.  
  
She turned sharp right onto the A104 and the car headed like an arrow, across the junctions and roundabouts and was well into the more spread out suburbs, away from the close confinement and the sense of tall buildings leaning over looking at them. Fenner was dazed and confused and his mind had given up trying to understand what was happening to him. He was trapped in a nightmare world that had sprung out of nowhere and enveloped him.  
  
The steady hum of the car eventually brought them near their destination as there came into sight on the right, a huge bank of trees that cast its shadow over the car. She slowed down slightly as she studied the roads ahead for the turnoff to the right that she was looking for. Eventually, there it was, the brown sign indicating the way in to Epping Forest. All her driving around this stretch of London, painstakingly committing to memory every twist and turn of the route was paying off.   
  
"Tell you what, Fenner, I'll let you into a little secret. I've been following you for weeks now. I know what time you come home from work, when you work early shifts, when you work late shifts, the pub you go to, I know everything …………..."  
  
"How the hell can an evil bitch like you stalk me like that?" Fenner's anger suddenly boiled over. For one moment, he forgot about the gun that was pointed at his bollocks, the shape of the nozzle that was looking him straight in the goolies. His rage was the rage of a man who was up against the enemy that had stalked him all his life, as long as he could remember, the enemy that he had to get before she got him. The desperation of his present situation taught him how right he had always been and why he was right to act as he had done.  
  
"I'm a professional, Fenner. You should know what the Atkins family is like, what it is capable of."  
  
The car bumped along the narrow track which took them away from the noise of the city streets and the crowds of people that Fenner was so used to. This was a step into an unknown world for him. On the other hand, her whole being was filled with tension and excitement and her mind was working on overdrive that the climax of all that she had focussed on for so long was approaching.  
  
When the car had got to the point that she wanted, she pulled the car up to a halt and shut off the engine. All was horrifyingly quiet and still.   
  
"Get out of the car, Fenner," Her cold voice cracked like a pistol shot. She had flicked open the catch to the boot which opened at once.  
  
Fenner did not even think of resisting as a pointed gun was aimed at him straight between his eyes.   
  
"Move a little bit away," Came the next order and the woman grabbed the spade from the boot with her left hand, covering Fenner with the pistol and pushed it down shut. She smiled more easily to herself, feeling that all her long term planning to an obsessive level was paying off.  
  
In one slow cystematic slide of perspective, the rapidly moving, sunlit car journey in fast moving traffic from the busy London streets, shot in close up now and smoothly panned out into a wide screen, long shot on another world altogether. Fenner and the woman with the gun now stood a little way off the rough dirt track well away from the humming sound of constant traffic. In utter silence and stillness on both sides of the path, huge old gnarled oak trees cast their tracery pattern of thin twigs growing from their sturdy branches high up into the sky. The pattern shaped leaves on the trees, though turning brown, still clustered on the branches and still blotted out a lot of the sunlight though some had fallen and the first acorns had dropped onto the ground. While the blue sky could still be seen directly overhead, the ancient woodland, a mere fragment of what had covered the counties, invited the two to enter a more primeval world which held fast its own ancient secrets and where human beings were but one of the species that ventured timidly into the heartlands of the forest. Dark shadows were cast from the umbrella of tall trees looming overhead. Paths could be seen which disappeared to somewhere deep in the forest, god knows where and only the ancient art of the explorer would serve to trace a path through to the other side. The place itself struck a trace of fear into the heart of the urban city dweller, unused to the ways of the forest. A faint chill breeze could be felt on Fenner's sweating skin and, caught deep as he was in the trap that was laid for him, the sinister atmosphere all helped to hint to him that the fear and the horror of that afternoon was only just really starting to begin.   
  
"Now keep walking, in a straight line till I tell you when to stop," She said, her spade, slung comfortably under her arm, her hand holding the sturdy tool by the metal haft. Everything was going perfectly to plan as she had pulled up outside the 'no litter' post that advised happy holidaymakers to respect the rules of the countryside. Her memory was faultless in steering her along the footpath, past the two very large oak trees. She only had a short distance to go now.  
  
Fenner stumbled along, his legs feeling leaden and not part of his body. He had hoped against hope that, out of the car, he might have a better chance to make a break for it, but not walking six feet or so, with a gun breathing down his back, totally powerless. His mind had frozen over and all his survival craft had deserted him.   
  
"You can stop right there Fenner, and turn around and face me," Came the hard commanding voice.  
  
"You're going to dig a nice big hole right behind you when I've thrown you this spade." Fenner's hair was standing on end and his panic level jumped to new heights as he had a presentiment of what was in store for him. "Don't think of using it as a weapon or I'll shoot you down where you stand." At that point, she threw the spade at his feet, took a few steps back and assumed a combat position, her gun levelled at him. "Turn around now and start digging. A nice big hole about six feet long and two feet wide."  
  
"You're raving mad, Atkins." A last effort of will flared up inside him to fight off the walls of death that were closing in on him. "Do you really think you can get away with killing me, a Principal Officer in the Prison service? It will hit the front pages of all the press. There'll be a drag net thrown over you and your family so quickly that you'll end up in the nick so fast your feet won't touch the ground, you evil bitch. You don't really mean it, you're too smart to do this. Now stay calm, stay calm."   
  
Fenner shifted his stance from anger, threats, an appeal to reason and finally, his desperate attempt to hypnotise with that fixed stare of his blue, very much unsettled eyes.   
  
"Oh, I am staying calm. It's quite easy, Fenner. You're digging your own grave like the way you've dug the graves of Rachel Hicks and Maxi Pervis for a start and all the women you've tried to ruin."  
  
"You know nothing about them, you mad bitch." A very demented Fenner stood trembling, deathly afraid to be confronted with the ghosts of all his invisible accusers whose very spirits seemed to rise out of the deepening gloom of the forest.   
  
"This is getting away from the point, Fenner," her loud commanding voice grabbed control of the moment together with the click as the gun was cocked, ready to fire. "Get digging or I shoot your bollocks off."   
  
It was as if her force of will had taken Fenner over completely in a way that a fleeting memory of the arrogant principal officer who owned the keys to the prison and had power over the inmates of Larkhall surprised her.   
  
He started to dig the soil and was surprised to find how soft it was, how easy it was to scoop shovelfuls out of the patch of ground in front of him and to pile it either side of the hole. He started to make rapid progress aware of the relentless woman and the gun pointed at his back. Presently, his spade dug into a patch of ground a little way to one side and it immediately hit hard impacted soil which only gouged a groove a few inches deep into the ground. He aimed his spade next at a patch of soil closer to the area that he had been digging and it sank deeply into the soil. He must be getting his knack back of something that he used to do occasionally of a Sunday afternoon when the kids were little and he was still with Marilyn. Funny, he used to grow peas at that time but he went off that like he went off most of the little day to day jobs round the house. Taking the line of least resistance had been a habit which had crept up on him  
  
"Hey, Atkins, why is it easier to dig in some parts of this ground and not in others?"  
  
"Haven't you guessed, Fenner?" Came the contemptuous reply.  
  
"You couldn't have……."  
  
"……dug the hole, just ready for you and covered it up. I was here last Sunday, Fenner, when everything was nice and quiet. That is, after I'd sat quietly in the local that you use, hearing you laugh and joke to your mates. Only the joke's on you this time, isn't it."  
  
Fenner's hair felt as if it was standing on end and everything inside him, all his defences, were shriveled up inside by this impossible nightmare before his eyes that could not be real. Just behind him was the wide, deep hole that was ready to receive him and swallow him up.  
  
"Why are you doing this to me, Atkins?" his voice croaked out at last.  
  
The sun suddenly dipped below the level of the trees plunging his world into impenetrable shadow. A darker shape was the woman before him, a symbol of vengeance as sinister and threatening as the four horsemen of the apocalypse, ready to claim his soul for their own.   
  
"Because of what you did to Karen, you bastard. Can you remember the night you raped her? You thought that you had wriggled your way out of trouble and you lied to her and lied to yourself afterwards." The voice started to build up in a peculiar mixture of hatred and excitement which convince Fenner that he was already on the threshold of a darker more dangerous alternate reality. "and you even threatened her at the trial to blacken her name publicly if she didn't cover up for you. When I think about it, if it weren't for you, Ritchie might still be alive right now. Get into the pit, Fenner," Her voice demanded and finally took over what remained of his free will.  
  
Fenner took a step back, stumbled over the pile of earth behind him and fell backwards into the hole and lay at the bottom of the pit. She raised her arm to extend outwards forty five degrees, slowly squeezed the trigger at last and the pistol cracked. Fenner felt a jolt, then an intense feeling of weakness and pain spread from his stomach where, once, Shell's bottle had nearly killed him. He lay there physically paralysed and helpless.  
  
He screamed out in horror when the first spadeful of earth fell in a pattern across his face and he tasted the bitter taste, half blinding him. His arms and legs feebly struggled but now with feverish energy, shower upon shower of earth landed on him, starting to cover him with a layer of earth. The layer started to build in thickness and became a real weight, pressing on his body and starting to choke his lungs. Many years ago, when he was the school bully, he used to duck smaller and weaker boys' heads under water and found it funny to see others suffer. Now everything that he had done that was evil came back to haunt him as he gradually lost consciousness as his will to struggle ebbed away. He had been spiritually dead a long time. It was just that he had never known it. Two final thoughts popped into his mind before his end overtook him, a tearing regret that he had lost Karen and that it was not the Atkins he knew, but Atkins's daughter who had done this to him. At that point, eternity overtook him. 


	97. Part Ninety Seven

Part Ninety Seven   
  
On the Sunday afternoon, Karen and Yvonne were in the lounge usually used by Lauren, going through the enormous pile of videos on the shelf above the TV, looking for something Yvonne had recorded a while ago and that she and Karen felt like watching. As is the way with most people, neither Yvonne nor Lauren wrote the name of what they'd recorded on any blank video. Yvonne was kneeling on the floor in front of the TV with a stack of videos spread out around her. As she identified what was on each one, she scribbled its title on the case. Cassie and Roisin had picked up the children that morning, after dropping Lauren off. But Lauren had gone almost straight out again.   
  
"Where's Lauren this afternoon?" Asked Karen.   
  
"She took Charlie's old banger," Replied Yvonne, "so god knows, but nowhere very smart if she's driving that old thing." Privately thinking that none of the cars on Yvonne's drive looked like it could be described as an old banger, Karen simply curled herself in to a corner of the enormous sofa, and watched Yvonne furiously searching for the film she'd recorded and forgotten to label. There was something incredibly satisfying about sitting perfectly still and feeling utterly calm, and at the same time watching someone else getting more and more irritated. She couldn't help grinning.   
  
"You think this is funny, do you?" Asked Yvonne, looking over at her, also with a smile.   
  
"You're incredibly sexy when you're angry," Said Karen, her wickedly sensual grin turning predatory.   
  
"Oh, really," Drawled Yvonne, getting up and coming to sit next to Karen.   
  
"Hmm," Replied Karen, stretching luxuriously. "You have an air of subdued fury, as if there's a powder keg in there somewhere, just waiting to be set alight."   
  
"I think you managed that last night," Said Yvonne dryly, remembering their eventual lovemaking of the night before. Karen laughed huskily and leaned forward to kiss her.   
  
"You're so beautiful," Karen said after a while.   
  
"Good looking I may be," Replied Yvonne, "But beautiful I definitely am not." Karen was about to tell Yvonne that if she, Karen, thought Yvonne was beautiful, then beautiful she must be. But the words died in her throat with the opening of the front door. They'd been so centered on each other that they hadn't heard the car pull up. Disentangling herself from Yvonne and doing up the top two buttons of her blouse which had somehow come undone, Karen watched in fascinated horror, as a thoroughly filthy Lauren, with the glazed eyes of someone high on something, strolled nonchalantly in to the lounge, casually holding a gun very loosely in her right hand.   
  
"Hi Mum," Said Lauren, too cheerfully for someone carrying such a tool of death and destruction. Karen just stared. Even if she'd been able to think of something to say, her tongue and throat were simply too dry to formulate the resemblance of speech.   
  
"Lauren, what've you done?" Asked Yvonne, her voice deadly quiet. Lauren grinned, and Karen was briefly reminded of the time she'd promised to get Shell Dockley's kitchen job back for her, and Shell had said that this would be great because she could get a knife from the kitchen and kill Mr. Fenner. There was a look of wild abandon in Lauren's eyes, a look that scared Karen to her core. Lauren couldn't keep still. She was gently waving the gun to and fro, and she moved persistently from one foot to the other. Not having got an answer to her question, Yvonne said,   
  
"Put the gun down," Still keeping her voice as quiet and unthreatening as possible whilst Lauren still held the potential to end anyone's life. Lauren made a move to throw the gun on to the coffee table but seeming to remember one of the first lessons her father had taught her concerning guns, she slid back the compartment which held the bullets and tipped them in to the palm of her hand. Her father had always taught her never to make any casual movement when in possession of a loaded gun. Any sudden contact with the surface of any gun had the potential to make it discharge its ammunition without warning. She put the gun down on the table and was about to drop the bullets in to her jeans pocket when Yvonne grabbed her wrist in a vice-like grip and said,   
  
"Give them to me." Not especially wanting a bruise in the shape of her mother's hand-print, Lauren complied. Yvonne swiftly counted them.   
  
"You've shot one with this," She said, pointing to the pistol on the coffee table, making a somewhat macabre picture amongst the Cd's, cigarette packets and ashtrays. Yvonne herself pocketed the bullets and critically examined Lauren's hands, which were noticeably speckled with gun residue.   
  
"You've got that look in your eye," She said to Lauren.   
  
"What look?" Lauren asked innocently, yet trying to flinch away from her mother's scrutiny.   
  
"You know what look," Said Yvonne, her voice rising as the realisation of what Lauren had been doing finally caught up with her. "The look your father always had when he'd killed someone. Is that it, Lauren, have you been following in his footsteps?" The urge to talk was too strong for Lauren, and she couldn't keep her secret any longer.   
  
"If you were a true Atkins, Mum," she said scornfully, "You'd be proud of me. Fenner's dead. You wanted him out of the picture, and that's what you've got." Yvonne was dimly aware of Karen's stricken profile but remained utterly focused on her daughter.   
  
"You've killed Fenner?" Asked Yvonne quietly.   
  
"That's what I said," Replied Lauren truculently. "They should bring in a medal for finishing off wankers like him." This totally fatuous comment seemed to bring Yvonne out of her temporary shock.   
  
"You stupid cow!" Yvonne said, all the anger of her Larkhall days reasserting itself. Ignoring her mother's outburst, Lauren turned to look at Karen.   
  
"And I don't know why you're looking so gob smacked?" Lauren said harshly, "You're why I did it." Karen opened her mouth to speak, but unable to produce any sound, she shut it again. Yvonne voiced the thought for her.   
  
"What the hell are you talking about?" She asked, forcibly turning Lauren to face her.   
  
"Ritchie asked me to do it," Lauren enlightened. "You weren't the only one who got a letter from him when he died. Ritchie said it was the only way he could put some of the bad stuff right. He asked me to do it for her," She said, looking over at Karen. "I had to do it, Mum. If there's one thing you don't do, it's deny your brother his last request." Yvonne stood as if turned to stone. She needed a moment to decide how she was going to handle this. She couldn't afford to think about why Ritchie had asked Lauren to do this, or to experience the sheer relief that Fenner could no more hurt Karen or anyone else. All she could and should focus her thoughts on was her daughter, and what possible consequences would be in store for them all if she didn't act quickly.   
  
"Where is he?" Yvonne asked after a moment's silence.   
  
"Six feet under in the middle of Epping Forest," Was Lauren's unequivocal reply.   
  
"Jesus," Muttered Yvonne in disgust.   
  
"Mum, if a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing well."   
  
"This isn't, or wasn't, a thing worth doing, well or otherwise," Replied Yvonne stonily. "Do you have any idea what will happen to you if the law catch up with you?"   
  
"Mum, trust me, no one is going to find him."   
  
"I don't believe we're having this conversation," Said Yvonne, feeling that all this was too farcical for words. Grabbing Lauren's arm, Yvonne propelled her towards the kitchen. Once there, she said,   
  
"Strip." Lauren just stared at her. "You heard me," continued Yvonne, "Clothes off and in the washing machine, now."   
  
"But Mum..."   
  
"Just do it, Lauren. You're covered in earth and god knows what else." Then, as Lauren began to remove her clothes, Yvonne said, "Shoes as well," Pointing to her trainers. When even Lauren's underwear had been put in to the washing machine, Yvonne said,   
  
"Right, go and have the longest shower you've ever had, and I don't want to see you again till I come up. Is that clear?"   
  
"Are you keeping me under house arrest?" Asked Lauren furiously as she walked up the stairs.   
  
"If need be, then yes," Replied Yvonne. "And don't touch anything till you've got that bleedin gun crap off your hands. I don't want a trace of it anywhere in this house." Yvonne returned to the lounge and picked up the gun from the coffee table. She was still aware of Karen's presence, but for the life of her, she didn't know what she could say. As she looked critically at the gun that had ended the life of one of the most ruthless bastards she'd ever known, Yvonne realised that it was a Sig Sauer nine millimetre pistol, a gun that always left its own finger print in the shape of a cartridge case. Retrieving the handful of spare bullets from her pocket, Yvonne was horrified to confirm that there wasn't an empty cartridge case among them, meaning that Lauren had almost certainly left it at the scene, ready to be found by any policeman eager to fulfill his duty. Going to the bottom of the stairs, Yvonne called,   
  
"Lauren?" and when her daughter appeared, she said, "Did you pick up the cartridge case?" At first, Lauren looked at her, totally mystified. Then a light dawned and her face finally began to show the true seriousness of the situation.   
  
"No," She said, sounding like her high had thoroughly worn off.   
  
"This just gets better and bleedin better," Replied Yvonne. "You know that this type of pistol always leaves the shell behind."   
  
"I forgot," Said Lauren miserably. Yvonne turned away from her, her anger at Lauren's utter stupidity making her temporarily speechless. After washing her hands, Yvonne went back in to the lounge and sat down next to Karen.   
  
"You might not want to stay for what I'm going to have to do," She said quietly. "I've got to clean that for a start," She said, gesturing to the gun which she'd put back down on the table whilst talking to Lauren. Karen turned to face her.   
  
"I can't believe he's dead," She said, the first words she'd uttered since Lauren had arrived home.   
  
"I know," Said Yvonne, "But right now, that isn't something I can think about."   
  
"I feel like I'm in the middle of some nightmare, watching a horror film take place before my eyes."   
  
"You and me both," Said Yvonne, taking one of Karen's hands. "But I have to do this for her."   
  
"I know," Said Karen, "And I'll stay, if you want me too."   
  
"Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you. Getting rid of evidence isn't nice." Yvonne picked up one of the Sunday newspapers, and took it and the gun in to the kitchen. She spread out the newspaper over the table, and laid the gun on top of it. She retrieved some of the solvent and gun oil routinely used in domestic gun cleaning and returned to the kitchen. Karen moved to stand in the kitchen doorway and simply stood and watched her. Soaking a rag in the Hops9 solvent, she scrubbed any hint of left over residue from the gun's outer surface. The Fragrant aroma of the solvent brought many unwelcome memories back to Yvonne of the times she'd either done this for Charlie, or watched him for once cleaning his own murder weapons. Karen thought that the not unpleasant smell of this solvent would for ever be ingrained on her memory. Then, dipping a rod in to the solvent, Yvonne worked it up inside the barrel, to thoroughly clean the pistol's internal workings. Once any evidence of recent firing had been removed, she wiped the cleaning rod, and dipped it this time in to a bottle of gun oil, and again coated the insides of the gun with the substance, to keep its internal mechanisms lubricated and ready for instant action. She briefly thought that there wasn't really any point doing this part, considering what she would be doing with the gun in the near future, but it had always been a part of the routine cleaning of any gun. Karen looked on with the sort of sick fascination that makes drivers stop to look at a horrific road accident.   
  
"why did you ask Lauren about the cartridge case?" Karen finally said, clearly finding something that could be simply explained. Yvonne looked up, having almost forgotten she was there.   
  
"When this type of pistol is fired, the firing pin always leaves a slight scratch on the cartridge case. It's almost as good as a fingerprint. No firing pin leaves exactly the same marks. So, if someone found the cartridge case and this gun, they'd be able to match the two after about ten minutes in some lab somewhere. Normally, that wouldn't be a problem, because I'd just get rid of this gun and no plodding pig would be able to prove it came from this house. But Charlie, being the arrogant git that he was, always engraved his favourite guns with his initials." Yvonne held the gun up to the light, and Karen could see the unobtrusive letters CJA displayed just above the trigger. "Charlie James Atkins," clarified Yvonne. "I always told him not to do it, but he was of the belief that he'd never be caught using one of his own licensed weapons for anything illegal, and give him his due, he only used his engraved guns for the legitimate shooting of pigeons and pheasants and other poor unsuspecting birds."   
  
"Give me some credit, Yvonne," Said Karen scornfully. "I know enough to be well aware that pistols such as this one are never used in game shooting." Yvonne looked at her with complete exasperation.   
  
"And maybe I'm just trying to find some tiny rational thing to cling on too here. Quite why Lauren chose to use one of her father's favourite guns to commit her first and hopefully last murder, I don't want to contemplate."   
  
"You're so calm," Said Karen, marveling at Yvonne's presence of mind in the face of such an afternoon of shocks and revelations.   
  
"It won't last," Said Yvonne, with the certainty of previous experience. "But right now, calm is what I've got to be. When Lauren came in, she looked like she'd had a line of Columbia's finest, but she'll come down from that high, and that's when what she's done will really hit her. If there's one thing I've got to do, it's to try to keep her out of somewhere like Larkhall. if she ended up in that place, I don't think she'd come out alive. She's nowhere near as strong as she makes out she is, and I don't want her taking the same way out as Ritchie."   
  
"You might not be able to stop that happening," Said Karen, who could cheerfully have kicked herself for saying such a thing in the face of Yvonne's current determination.   
  
"Don't you think I know that?" Asked Yvonne, her terror at Lauren's possible future finally beginning to take hold. "I know what it's like to be in there for god knows how long. Lauren couldn't deal with it, I know she couldn't. I can't let her go the same way as Ritchie." Karen privately thought that Lauren was well on her way to Ritchie's state of being already, but managed to hold her tongue. Shock was an odd thing, she thought. It could make you spew forth words with as little prior warning and real direction as vomit. She had the insane urge to say an awful lot of things to Yvonne right then, and had an internal battle with herself to keep quiet. Now wasn't the time to tell Yvonne that she thought she was crazy to even think of covering up for Lauren, that in doing so she was booking herself another bed in Larkhall, and that in any case, Lauren probably wouldn't thank her for it. Yvonne cleared away the solvent and gun oil, and wiped clean the rods she'd used to clean the inside of the pistol. She wrapped the gun in the newspaper it had been lying on and bore it away to some secure location, ready to be disposed of later. Whilst Yvonne was out of sight, Karen had a moment to put her thoughts in order, and the one thing that presented itself as a must, was that she had to inform Cassie and Roisin of what had happened. Over the last few weeks, it had looked to her as if they were both getting far more involved with Lauren than friends usually did, and Karen knew that they had to know. Yvonne possibly wouldn't thank her for it, but Karen wasn't going to be dissuaded from doing this. Besides, she needed to talk to someone about this. She needed to unburden some of the thoughts that just wouldn't leave her alone. Walking swiftly to the table in the hall that held the telephone and answering machine, Karen flicked through the pages of the address book, until she came to Cassie and Roisin's address. Committing it to memory, she was just about to replace it when Yvonne looked over her shoulder.   
  
"I know," She said, "I've had that thought as well."   
  
"They have to know," Said Karen simply. Yvonne seemed deflated.   
  
"I know they do, I just don't want to be the one to do it."   
  
"Would you like me too?" Asked Karen.   
  
"I can't ask you to do that," Replied Yvonne.   
  
"Well, as disposing of crucial evidence has never been a day to day occupation of mine," Said Karen, "This is probably the only thing I can handle doing." Yvonne winced at Karen's clear inference at her previous criminal lifestyle. "I'm sorry," Said Karen, "That wasn't really called for."   
  
"Most of today wasn't really called for," Replied Yvonne sarcastically, "But I've got to deal with it." Karen moved forward and took Yvonne in her arms.   
  
"I am here for you, you know," She said, feeling the rigidity of Yvonne's tense, strung-out body.   
  
"don't say something you don't mean," Replied Yvonne quietly. Karen stood back from her and looked her straight in the eye.   
  
"I didn't ask to be flung in to this situation," She pointed out, clinging on to her control by the skin of her teeth.   
  
"No, and neither did I," Pointed out Yvonne, the tears rising to her eyes. She furiously wiped them away with the back of her hand.   
  
"I'm sorry," Said Karen, hating herself for hurting Yvonne like this.   
  
"Don't be," Said Yvonne, making a determined effort not to let Karen see how much she was hurting. "Let's face it, the way I brought Lauren up, I guess I've got what I asked for." 


	98. Part Ninety Eight

Part Ninety Eight   
  
A while later when Karen had left, and was driving towards Cassie and Roisin's small, detached house in Notting Hill Gate, she could finally let her real feeling at the situation emerge. What the hell had Lauren been thinking of, and more to the point, what was she, Karen, doing in keeping the events of the afternoon out of the eyes and ears of the law. She couldn't deal with this. In a similar fashion to that in which Helen had greeted Nikki's appearance on her doorstep all that time ago, Karen couldn't quite comprehend her place within this sudden breaking of the law. Sure, she knew that Yvonne did still have the odd gun at her disposal, but purely as a means of protection, and this was something Karen could quite easily ignore most of the time. But what Lauren had done was quite different. This was just too much to get her head round.   
  
When she drew up in front of Cassie and Roisin's house, she briefly wondered if she was doing the right thing in coming here. Did she really have the right to thoroughly spoil a normal Sunday afternoon? But strengthening her resolve, she got out of the car and locked it. Cassie and Roisin had to know, if for no better reason than that they were Lauren's and Yvonne's closest friends. When she rang the doorbell, she attempted to school her face in to a nondescript expression which wouldn't betray her feeling of utterly confused fear to the children. But it was Cassie who answered. She was chewing a piece of raw carrot and made an attempt to swallow it before speaking.   
  
"Hi," She said with a smile. "This is a nice surprise."   
  
"I'm not sure you'll think so when you hear what I've got to tell you," Replied Karen.   
  
"Come in," Said Cassie, holding the door open. Karen followed Cassie in to the kitchen, where Roisin was preparing the vegetables to go with the roast lamb and roast potatoes which were in the oven. Karen liked this kitchen. She'd never been here before, but she was greeted by the sight of one of the most welcoming rooms she'd ever seen. Roisin was stood chopping carrots, which Cassie kept stealing, and was surrounded by the clear evidence of the cooking of a Sunday dinner. There was an enormous notice board on one wall, covered with the childrens' drawings and well-praised pieces of work they'd done at school.   
  
"Look who's here," Said Cassie.   
  
"Hello," Said Roisin looking pleased to see her.   
  
"Would you like a drink?" Asked Cassie.   
  
"Yes please," Replied Karen, "A very large scotch would go down a treat." After pouring Karen's whisky and herself and Roisin vodka and tonic, Cassie said,   
  
"So, what's the extremely unpleasant thing you've come to tell us?" Karen didn't know what to say. She opened her mouth a couple of times but she just didn't know how to begin such a horrific story.   
  
"What's happened?" Asked Roisin, taking a swig of her drink.   
  
"Where are the children?" Asked Karen, not wanting any possibility of either of them hearing what she had to say.   
  
"Michael's trying to increase his sister's football potential," Said Roisin, gesturing out of the kitchen window, where Niamh had just directed the offending object straight in to a flowerbed.   
  
"So much for your geraniums," Remarked Cassie with a smile. Putting the carrots on to boil, Roisin said,   
  
"Come and sit down." They all moved in to the lounge, and Karen slumped gratefully in to an armchair. She could get to like this house, she thought. It was so normal, so cheerful and happy. What right did she have to utter inside its walls, the words to describe an event that must irrevocably change all of their lives?   
  
"I'm not sure I should tell you with the children in hearing distance," Said Karen, craving any excuse to put off the moment when she would shatter the normality that surrounded their little nest. "Maybe I should come back later," She said, making a move to stand up and leave. Roisin put out a hand to keep Karen in her chair.   
  
"You're frightened of something," She said quietly.   
  
"Yes, you could say that," replied Karen on a shaky little laugh.   
  
"And it doesn't take rocket science to work out that it's to do with either Lauren or Yvonne," Finished Cassie. Karen downed the rest of her scotch.   
  
"I shouldn't really be here," She said, "It isn't fair to do this to either of you."   
  
"Okay," Said Cassie, trying to calm Karen down, "So, it's clearly something that should wait until the kids have gone to bed, but what exactly would you be doing if you did go now and come back later."   
  
"I'm not sure," Replied Karen, knowing that going home to her empty flat was unthinkable right now.   
  
"Precisely," Stated Cassie. "And I don't think you should be on your own right now. You look like a fox that's been caught in a trap by the scruff of its neck." Under normal circumstances, Karen would simply have rolled her eyes at Cassie's terminology, but on this occasion, she was probably right.   
  
"Stay for tea," Said Roisin, "There's plenty here." Wondering if she'd be able to eat a thing, Karen agreed, and attempted to bring her feelings back under control so that she wouldn't appear too odd or distant with Michael and Niamh.   
  
All throughout the meal, Karen did her best to maintain an outwardly happy exterior, but both Cassie and Roisin could see that she was finding it extremely difficult. After they'd eaten, Cassie persuaded a reluctant Michael to help her with the washing up, and Karen listened as Roisin heard Niamh practicing her reading. They made such a complete, perfect little family, the four of them. The children looked on Cassie as simply their other parent, not caring that she was a woman, and that she had usurped their father's place in their mother's life. When it got near bedtime, Niamh slid on to Karen's knee and said,   
  
"Please will you read me a story?" Being presented with such an innocent face brought brief tears to Karen's eyes.   
  
"Not tonight, sweetheart," She replied gently.   
  
"Why are you sad?" Asked Niamh, with all the fearless inquisitiveness that always gave children the courage to ask the questions that many adults would shy away from. Karen had no idea how to reply to such a question. But she was saved by Michael's unexpected admonishment.   
  
"Niamh Connor, you don't ask things like that." Karen gave him a watery smile, her first since the revelations of that afternoon.   
  
"Come on, kids," Said Cassie, "Time for bed." Niamh slid off Karen's knee and followed Cassie and Michael upstairs.   
  
"He's wise beyond his years, your son," Said Karen to Roisin.   
  
"He had to grow up very fast when I was in prison. Aiden always tried to avoid answering difficult questions, which as you'll know is always a bad thing to do with children. So, Michael learnt overnight that there simply are some things you don't ask. If Niamh wants an answer to something, she'll still sometimes ask him instead of us, even now."   
  
Up stairs, Cassie was watching as a visibly tired Niamh cleaned her teeth. When she'd got in to bed, she said,   
  
"Why didn't auntie Karen smile today?" Sitting down on the edge of the child's bed, Cassie put her arms round the little girl who was easily as precious to her as her mother was.   
  
"Karen isn't very happy today."   
  
"Why?"   
  
"I don't know, darling. Sometimes, people just are unhappy and need a bit of a cuddle to put it right." But as she switched out the light and walked across the landing to Michael's room, Cassie thought that this wasn't just any need for a hug, it was something huge, something truly enormous, something that she suspected was about to change their lives for ever. She peeped round the half open door of Michael's bedroom, festooned with football posters and his collection of prized model racing cars.   
  
"Are you still reading Harry Potter?" Asked Cassie.   
  
"Yeah," Said Michael, only briefly looking up. "Only got a few more chapters to go now."   
  
"Well, you can read for an hour, but no more. It's a school night don't forget." As she walked down stairs, she smiled. When Michael had pleaded with Roisin to be allowed to read the first Harry Potter book, Roisin had begun to read it, in order to find out what her son would be letting himself in for. But curiosity being her middle name, Cassie had started reading it herself, and to Michael's intense pleasure had finished it far quicker than his mother would have done, which had meant that he could start on it sooner. Cassie had an unbearable feeling of foreboding as she went in to the lounge. She couldn't explain it, but she was sure that whatever Karen had to tell them wasn't going to be easily sorted out.   
  
Roisin had poured them all another drink, and handed Cassie the vodka and tonic as she sat down on the sofa.   
  
"So, what's happened?" Asked Cassie, as ever coming straight to the point. Taking a deep breath, Karen knew she couldn't put it off any longer.   
  
"Fenner's dead," She said bluntly, totally unable to think of any other way of putting it.   
  
"There's more to it than that," Asserted Roisin quietly. Karen waited until Cassie had swallowed a mouthful of her vodka, before saying,   
  
"Lauren, shot him." Cassie face was a picture. Her eyes became as wide as saucers and her mouth opened and closed, making her look like a fish out of water. Roisin simply sat perfectly still.   
  
"Explain?" Said Roisin, with the total calm of the atom bomb just prior to detonation.   
  
"I was with Yvonne this afternoon, and Lauren came home, covered in earth and casually waving a pistol around like it was a cricket bat. She was proud of it, she told Yvonne that if she was a true Atkins, she'd be proud of her." Now that Karen had started, she didn't seem able to stop. "I had to watch as Yvonne cleaned the gun. I'm assuming that she's done the same with the car."   
  
"Oh, no," Said Cassie furiously. "The stupid, stupid cow."   
  
"She said she had to do it," Explained Karen, the tears coursing down her face now that she could finally begin to unburden herself. "She said that she couldn't let Lauren end up in Larkhall."   
  
"Well, that's where they'll both end up at this rate," Replied Cassie, the embodiment of Roisin's silent anger.   
  
"How could she do it?" Asked Roisin eventually.   
  
"She said that she did it partly for Ritchie, and partly for me," Finished Karen hollowly.   
  
"Oh, my God," Said Roisin soberly.   
  
"Ritchie begged her to do it, in the letter he wrote to her before he died," Continued Karen. "I swear I didn't know she was going to do something so stupid, I swear I didn't." This pleading of her own innocence in the matter, made Cassie and Roisin focus on Karen herself rather than on what she was telling them.   
  
"We know you didn't, sweetheart," Said Roisin, the calm, motherly instinct seeming to take over her every action. They moved towards Karen simultaneously, each taking one of her hands and leading her over to the sofa where they could all sit comfortably. They sat on each side of her, their arms holding her shuddering body.   
  
"That's right," Said Roisin, "You let it all out." Karen couldn't have held back now if she'd tried. She'd kept this secret to herself for almost three hours now, and the strain had finally got to her.   
  
"I, should be so relieved, that, that he's gone," She said between sobs, "But I can't. I know, it sounds stupid, but it just feels wrong."   
  
"It doesn't sound stupid at all," Said Roisin gently.   
  
"Why can't I at least feel relieved that possibly the biggest nightmare of my life is finally gone?" Karen asked, in total desperation to find some explanation for the grief-tinged confusion that was currently swamping her.   
  
"Because it doesn't quite work like that," Answered Cassie reasonably.   
  
"No matter what Fenner did to you and to countless others during his lifetime," Clarified Roisin, "Part of you will still grieve for the brief, happy time you had with him." Karen looked aghast.   
  
"That's the last thing I want to think about," She said, utterly humiliated to realise that Roisin was right.   
  
"I know," Went on Roisin, "But you will. You can't help but think about that."   
  
"You lived with him, for God's sake," Said Cassie, "Fenner might have been a shit of the highest order, but you still lived with him, and for a while, were happy with him. Of course you'll grieve for that. Just because he hurt you later on, doesn't mean that those memories can be automatically forgotten."   
  
"I might hate some of the things that Aiden's said to me over the years," Said Roisin, "But that doesn't mean I wouldn't feel some hurt if he was killed, especially by someone I know."   
  
"It's the same with Fenner," Said Cassie, and Karen recoiled at this. "And don't look at me like that," Went on Cassie, "Fenner used to say he loved you, didn't he, and at the time, that must have meant something to you. It isn't wrong to feel confused and hurt and angry and all the rest of it."   
  
"Yvonne was so calm," Said Karen.   
  
"That's no surprise," Said Roisin.   
  
"Most of that will have been to cover up how she really felt," Added Cassie. "She probably just feels that keeping Lauren out of prison is the one definite thing she has to do. Yvonne won't even be able to comprehend how you might feel about this, she won't have any emotional space for it."   
  
"I'm sorry," Said Karen, feeling utterly foolish at her outburst.   
  
"Don't be," Said Roisin. "I'm just amazed you kept quiet about it this long."   
  
"But you were right," Finished off Cassie, "The kids did need to be in bed for this one. I need some time to get my head around this myself."   
  
"Do you know something," Said Karen, "I've got a meeting with a barrister tomorrow morning, to continue work on putting a case together against Fenner and area management. How ludicrous is that?"   
  
"Jesus," Said Cassie, "Can you get out of it?"   
  
"No," Replied Karen, a feeling of certainty creeping back in to her voice. "If there's one thing I've got to do, it's to keep up the appearance that everything's normal. I would look far more suspicious if, when he is found, it could be proved that I had avoided contact with a representative of the law."   
  
A while later when Karen left, Cassie and Roisin simply sat on the sofa where she'd left them. They remained silent for a long time.   
  
"How could she do it?" Asked Roisin eventually, voicing their duplicate thought.   
  
"Lauren's always been a bit different to the rest of us," Replied Cassie. "And even more so since the trial. But as you say, that's no reason for this."   
  
"What're we going to do?"   
  
"There's not much we can do," Replied Cassie with a determined air, "Except to be there when she needs us, because this isn't going to go away. You know that as well as I do." 


	99. Part Ninety Nine

Part Ninety Nine   
  
On the Monday morning, Karen drove in to work with a feeling of unreality. Part of her was aware that this was just any ordinary day, with her wing to manage and inmates to deal with. But this was overshadowed by the events of the previous afternoon. Once she'd returned home last night, Karen had found herself staring repeatedly at the phone, her eyes straying to the address book which contained both Jo's and George's numbers. Her urge to tell someone, anyone, was almost unbearably strong. She'd cried herself out with Cassie and Roisin, and felt half ashamed of her outburst. But they'd been wonderful to her, when the news of what Lauren had done must have come with just as much shock to them as it had to her. She couldn't sit still, she couldn't settle to doing anything. she had mindlessly worked her way through an entire basket of ironing, to give her hands something to do, to keep them away from picking up the phone. She had moved from alcohol to coffee, knowing that whisky certainly wouldn't help her inclination to make irrational decisions like confiding in a member of the legal profession. But the caffeine only increased her restlessness. When she eventually made her way to bed, she slipped in and out of a troubled sleep, perpetually tortured by images of Fenner's face. Part of her was desperate to know exactly how he had met his end, and the rest of her shied away from such information. But the questions still stayed with her. How much pain had he been in? How had he felt when he'd died? Had he been aware that he was going to die, or was he as surprised as she had been. But the answer to this last one didn't really need any constant mulling over like the others. Lauren was, after all, an Atkins, and clearly an Atkins who took her duty as such to the letter. She would have made Fenner suffer, of that Karen was sure.   
  
As she moved through the familiar gates and corridors of Larkhall, she felt like she was looking down on herself, as if half of her was only observing her day to day activities. During the usual early morning officers meeting, she was presented with the first occasion on which she had to put on an Oscar-winning performance. She found herself asking where Jim was, and listening to the replies of some saying they hadn't seen him. She asked Di to phone Jim to see if he was unwell, and could have cheerfully kicked herself. If there was one thing she shouldn't be doing it was drawing attention to his disappearance. People would discover that soon enough, and it wasn't for her to speed up that inevitable process. Shit, she thought, as she walked back out through the gates to drive to George's office for their eleven o'clock meeting, I'm not really cut out for this. when she pulled in to the car park in front of George's office, she took a few moments to collect her thoughts. If her performance in front of the officers was anything to go by, her act required a lot of major improvement. After all, George was a barrister, highly skilled in drawing out information, beautifully adept at making people trip over their own words. Wishing she could have had a qualification from RADA to back her up, Karen locked the car and walked through the doors in to the legal world that now held only fear and the threat of punishment for her. She was surprised to se George herself appearing in reception to collect her.   
  
"My secretary has chosen today of all days to go off sick," Said George disgustedly.   
  
"Have you recovered from last week?" Asked Karen, desperately trying to find a safe topic of conversation.   
  
"From my visit to Larkhall, yes," Replied George, and Karen had the impression that something else had happened to George in the previous week that overshadowed her visit to Larkhall and that wouldn't be so easily overcome. She followed George up stairs, wondering if she really could pull this off. Once inside her office, George briefly left to make them some coffee, something she would usually have delegated to her long-suffering secretary. Whilst George was otherwise engaged, Karen walked over to the window. She could look down on the busy Knightsbridge street, already full of midmorning shoppers with clearly nothing better to do with their time. How normal they all seemed from her vantage point. But she supposed that she looked exactly the same. She was still Karen Bets, Governor of G wing, thirty-eight-years-old, mother of one son, Ross, aged twenty. But how different she was from twenty four hours ago. Yesterday morning, Karen Betts had still been happy, normal, and judging by her reactions of subsequent events, still relatively innocent. How could she do this? How could she just carry on as if he was still alive, still out there somewhere, she really didn't know. When George returned with the coffee, she found Karen still staring out of the window, though clearly taking no notice of the world out there in front of her. Putting two mugs of coffee down on the small table by the little group of comfortable chairs that faced her desk, she called Karen's name, but got no response. George moved to stand beside Karen and looked up in to her face. The mixture of fear and utter desolation she saw there shocked her. She put out a hand and gently touched one of Karen's which was resting on the windowsill, not wanting to startle her but nevertheless achieving this result. Karen stared at her for a moment, taking a second or two to realise that it was George's concerned face looking at her, not that of some known or unknown demon.   
  
"I'm sorry," Said Karen, making a monumental effort to regain her equilibrium. "I was miles away."   
  
"Yes, and not somewhere nice by the look of you," Replied George. "Has something happened?" It was unlike George to show or even feel this much concern for someone she'd only known for a short time, but the brief look of sheer terror in Karen's eyes, induced a feeling of protectiveness that was utterly alien to George.   
  
"No," Said Karen, "At least not something that's in any way relevant to this case." She ought to be wiped off the face of the earth for such a whopper of a lie. George gave her a look as if to say, give me some credit for being in the business of detecting untruths, but Karen steadfastly wouldn't meet George's eye. Seeing that she wasn't going to get any further, George returned to the matter in hand.   
  
They began talking about Karen's visit the previous week to see Shell Dockley, though this seemed like a lifetime ago to both of them.   
  
"When I came to Larkhall, you said that Fenner had been using Dockley as a prostitute," Said George, taking note of Karen's almost imperceptible flinch at Fenner's name.   
  
"Yes," Replied Karen, attempting to rein in her surely visible reaction to hearing that word that even now, even though he was dead, could irrevocably change her life. "She did say that one of my other officers, Collin Hedges, was in on this arrangement. If he is, then he's in line for the sack at the very least. I remember on the day that Shell was transferred to Ashmore, I found Fenner in her cell, supposedly getting her things together. He looked pretty shifty, but I didn't think anything of it because he looks like that so often. Shell told me that her one possession which didn't make it to Ashmore was her stash of cash that she'd accumulated from this little earner. I think he pocketed it." George walked to her desk and brought her notated entries of the Sexual Offenses Act on to the screen and printed a copy for Karen to see.   
  
"Taking this in to consideration," She said, handing Karen the print-out, "He is without doubt guilty of transgressing against four specific areas of the Sexual Offenses Act, something that area management are duty bound to investigate." Karen began to read what she'd been given. There were four separate excerpts from the 2003 Act, with various names of the relevant victims or individuals involved highlighted underneath. This ran as follows:   
  
"Sexual Offences Act 2003:   
  
Rape  
  
(1) A person (A) commits an offence if-  
  
(a) he intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person (B) with his penis,  
  
(b) B does not consent to the penetration, and  
  
(c) A does not reasonably believe that B consents.  
  
(2) Whether a belief is reasonable is to be determined having regard to all the circumstances, including any steps A has taken to ascertain whether  
  
B consents. (Karen Betts).   
  
  
  
Sexual assault  
  
(1) A person (A) commits an offence if-  
  
(a) he intentionally touches another person (B),  
  
(b) the touching is sexual,  
  
(c) B does not consent to the touching, and  
  
(d) A does not reasonably believe that B consents. (Helen Stewart, possibly Michelle Dockley).   
  
  
  
Causing or inciting prostitution for gain  
  
(1) A person commits an offence if-  
  
(a) he intentionally causes or incites another person to become a prostitute in any part of the world, and  
  
(b) he does so for or in the expectation of gain for himself or a third person. (Michelle Dockley, possibly Maxine Pervis and Rachel Hicks).   
  
Keeping a brothel used for prostitution  
  
(1) It is an offence for a person to keep, or to manage, or act or assist in the management of, a brothel to which people resort for practices involving prostitution (whether or not also for other practices). (Fenner's managing of Virginia O'kane's brothels)."   
  
Karen read this through and then looked up.   
  
"Why have you noted down Maxine Pervis and Rachel Hicks for the prostitution issue?"   
  
"The fact that they used the giving of sexual favours in return for either an easy life or a raise in status could be defined as a form of prostitution. I've talked to Jo about her conversation with Helen Stewart, and it appears that around the time when he was probably beginning his affair with Rachel Hicks, he pleaded her case for a move on to enhanced and for giving her the job of making tea for the officers. Wouldn't you say that these sort of favours would perhaps be worth far more than pure and simple cash to an inmate serving a stretch that could hardly be called short?"   
  
"Definitely, and yes, he did do the same with Pervis. It was just after he was made Wing Governor. He tried to put both her and McKenzy on enhanced, but Grayling blocked it. That was probably the only sensible thing Grayling's ever done."   
  
"So, we've established that a raise in prison status and a raise in employment was the currency with both Hicks and Pervis."   
  
"Is there any legislation about abusing vulnerable people within the confines of a state institution?"   
  
"Yes, I've thought of that one, but no. Prisoners are not, in this case, categorized as vulnerable people."   
  
"But that's ridiculous," Said Karen, clearly astounded.   
  
"After what I saw last week," Replied George, "I wholeheartedly agree. Women who are locked up and have absolutely no way of defending themselves are by definition vulnerable, but all of Fenner's victims, at least the ones we know about, were all over eighteen. If any of them had been younger, then we might have had more to throw at him and area management, because the caring for people under the age of eighteen brings its own inevitable responsibilities."   
  
"How about with the care of mentally disturbed people, because let's face it, you don't get much more mentally disturbed than on some of the occasions I've seen Shell Dockley. I remember once, I think it was just before Helen came back, Shell was stood up on the 3's, with a fake noose round her neck. She called to Fenner to string her up like Rachel Hicks because it was what she thought he wanted."   
  
"I don't envy you your job," Said George soberly, thinking that one person could surely only see so many horrific things going on around them day after day before it began to corrode the spirit.   
  
"Most of the time," Said Karen contemplatively, "I find it the most fascinating job I think I could ever do. But yes, at times it can get a bit much."   
  
"As regards his abuse of mentally disturbed women, that legislation would only be effective if we were talking about a hospital environment, or again if it involved women under the age of eighteen. Corrupt prison officers do have a couple of very successful little loopholes, but we'll certainly not be doing so badly with what we've got."   
  
"Would a court take any of Dockley's evidence seriously?"   
  
"Anything's worth a try," Said George with a shrug, "But if we do use her evidence, we will need a formal statement. Do you think you could get in to see her again?"   
  
"I don't see why not. She said that she was going to put me on her visitors list. This at least means that I won't in future need a court order to see her. But if you want a formal statement from Dockley, it might be worth you coming with me to see her yourself. That way, you'll be able to keep her on the track of exactly what you do and don't want in a statement." George looked aghast.   
  
"No way," She said vehemently, but then tried to sound slightly less terrified by the prospect. "I'm sorry," She continued, "But you will never get me anywhere near anything that resembles a psychiatric hospital." If George's reply had simply been filled with the aristocratic drawing back of skirts from the dregs of society, Karen would have made some flippant comment about George's visit to Larkhall, but she could see that there was more to it than this.   
  
"What are you frightened of?" Asked Karen gently.   
  
"Nothing," Replied George a little too quickly, her eyes darting from one part of the room to the other. "I just don't want to become even remotely acquainted with that kind of place." Knowing there was far more to George's fear at the thought of even temporarily entering a psychiatric hospital of any kind, Karen thought that they had now scored one all in the game of hiding enormous, significant realities from each other. She dug around in her handbag for her cigarettes and offered one to a grateful George.   
  
"Yvonne suggested I ask you something," Karen said, trying to get both her and George on to safer ground. "She wondered if, during the time you were defending Ritchie, he ever put anything in any statement, that might be used to strengthen a subsequent rape case against Fenner. I told her this would be clutching at straws, but I suppose anything's possible." George looked thoughtful. Walking over to a filing cabinet, she retrieved Ritchie Atkins case file from one of its drawers. Rifling through all the documents that certainly wouldn't hold what she was looking for, she finally plucked out his statement and returned to her chair. She quickly ran her eyes over the entire document.   
  
"There's nothing here in writing, though that would certainly have been useful. But he did once talk to me about you. He said that if he'd known that that imbecile Cantwell was going to bring up the withdrawn rape allegation, he'd have done his best to persuade him against it. Ritchie said that it made a lot of things make sense. He said that up until he heard Cantwell introduce the withdrawn allegation, he hadn't been able to put his finger on why you were the way you were on the first night you spent with him. He said that you'd told him afterwards that you were laying a few ghosts and that at the time, he didn't know what you were talking about. I think his words were, she was trying to make herself enjoy being screwed again. Not put in the nicest way, but that was Ritchie Atkins for you." Karen simply stared at George, thinking that Ritchie had been far more perceptive than she would ever have given him credit for.   
  
Karen was about to speak, when George's phone rang. It was reception, to tell her that a Neil Haughton was here to see her. The look on George's face was a mixture of fear, irritation and anger.   
  
"He doesn't have an appointment," She said to the girl on reception, "but tell him he's got five minutes to plead his case and then he's out of here. I'll come down." When George replaced the receiver, Karen said,   
  
"Clearly not someone you're pleased to see."   
  
"No," Said George with a grimace. "The secretary of state for trade, the Right Honourable or in this case dishonourable, Neil Haughton, my ex. I'd have thought he would have learnt his lesson by now, but apparently not."   
  
"you offered me your services as a witness last Thursday," Said Karen, "Would you like me to do the same for you now?" George gave her a tight smile.   
  
"Thank you, but no. This is personal, very very personal. I expect he's come to apologise, again, but it won't do him any good whatsoever." As Karen followed George downstairs, she couldn't quite believe she'd got through that meeting without letting out her secret. She owed George, and Jo and John for that matter, far better than this. They'd, all three of them, offered and given her help when she'd desperately needed it, and what was she doing by knowingly keeping quiet about a monumental bit of lawbreaking, she was betraying all of them.   
  
"I'll give you a call when I make any further progress with this case," George said to Karen as they arrived in reception.   
  
"Thank you," Said Karen, and George had the brief impression that there was far more behind this word of thanks than a simple appreciation of her professionalism. 


	100. Part One Hundred

Part One Hundred   
  
The Autumn sun shone brightly through her window but thunderclouds were clearly heading in her direction personally from the approaching footsteps up the staircase that was clearly Neil Houghton. It helped for him to jump through the hoop of the receptionist and coming upstairs to her office where she was on her home ground. Her inner sanctum made her feel more secure.  
  
George had to leave as unfinished business her thoughts on how the Karen who walked out of the door was definitely not at home with herself and not the woman whom she thought she was. She had work to do on the case against area management. Neil landing on her doorstep was a tiresome intrusion. Something at the back of her mind told her that sooner or later, she would have to face him again.  
  
There was a polite knock on the door and Neil sheepishly let himself in. George immediately waved him to the visitor's chair. Neil stood uneasily in mid tread, intending to move closer to her but, as a goodmorning kiss was clearly not on the cards, ended up visibly not being sure where to put himself.  
  
"We had to talk," Neil blurted out, as if he had been rehearsing this line which, whatever the context, he would have come out with.  
  
"That's what you said last time, Neil," George said in low but firm tones. At the back of her mind, Neil served a useful function for the first time since she had known him in being a convenient object of displaced feelings of discomfort after Karen had talked of psychiatric examinations.  
  
"I did?" Neil's puzzled voice betrayed that his memory had malfunctioned.  
  
"Don't you remember the day when John pinned you up against the wall? He looked so strong and masterful." Her voice drawled with exquisite sarcasm. "Anyway," George added nonchalantly. "Your way of talking is with your fists."  
  
Neil coughed nervously with embarrassment, strange for the man who according to himself, 'never got rattled.'  
  
"That was an unfortunate mistake, George. I am not in the habit of behaving that way."  
  
"Oh, indeed," George scoffed. "I ought to check that one with your previous women before I believe you." In her best theatrical tradition, she did not miss the use of the word, 'that' to distance himself from his excuses rather than 'this' and be drawn in to starting to forgiving him. But trust a politician to behave that way. She should know as she'd lived with one.  
  
"You've changed," Neil said simply, one of the rare occasions that he came out with the first thing that came in to his mind. "Is it an illusion or are you slimmer than when I saw you last?"  
  
"Yes, well, it's all a matter of self control and discipline, Neil," George ungraciously and suspiciously replied. "It's the nearest you've come to a compliment. It must mean you want something."  
  
"It's just that I haven't seen you for a long time," Neil's smooth tones rolled out like honey. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder, you know. I've missed you, George."  
  
"More like you are missing the weekly screw, Neil. I've moved on from you."   
  
"I suppose that all this means is that you've hooked up with the Deed. I could tell that a mile away," Neil said sniffily.  
  
George laughed in her brittle fashion at the absurdity of the thought of Neil having deep psychological insight into her feelings.  
  
"Wouldn't you like to know?" George teased, knowing full well that Neil was guessing. "Anyway," she added with aplomb, "It's no business of yours who I sleep with any more than mine of some unfortunate woman who is dazzled by your status and position."   
  
"George, listen to me," Neil urged. "I'm not very good at expressing my feelings and I know that there might have been misunderstandings in the past but really we ought to talk them through……….."  
  
Neil was talking in the typical way a politician talks. Where a normal human being would use simple and concise words to come to the point, his innate fear of simple formulations made his mouth work almost without intervention from his brain, collecting worn out phrases as a council workman will rake in dead leaves strewn about in the park. After all, parliamentary debate in the House of Commons involved the same ability to waffle on for hours.   
  
George's eyes were glazing over after the first few minutes and, in a moment of pure tedium, she watched the second hand of the wall clock immediately behind Neil as it silently clicked its way geometrically from the starting position of 12 to complete the lap and do it again and again.  
  
In the meantime, Neil sneaked a sidelong glance at George's computer screen.   
  
"Sexual Offences Act 2003:   
  
Rape  
  
A person (A) commits an offence if-  
  
he intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person (B) with his penis,  
  
B does not consent to the penetration, and  
  
A does not reasonably believe that B consents."  
  
"……What's that you're doing, George?" Neil suddenly broke in. "Not your usual kind of work. Are you doing work for the other side?"  
  
Her mind went temporarily blank and then an improbable vision of Neil as a glamorous, blue suited James Bond character, complete with smoking gun and herself as an even more improbably named Pussy Galore. She shook her head in wonder.  
  
"But working for the Russians is perfectly respectable these days. Look at President Putin, for example."  
  
For once, Neil thought that this was one of George's sarcastic barbs but had got it wrong.   
  
"I mean, it all looks very suspicious. Charging huge fees in company law is more your style."  
  
"If you must know, Neil, though God knows why I am telling you, I'm preparing a case against the Prison Service area management for negligence in the way that it has consistently failed to take action against that loathsome reptile Mr James Fenner in his systematic sexual abuse, both against the women in his care and also other prison officers. Of course, it may hit the tabloid press 'Fennergate- another Blow for Blair's hopes.' Is that clear enough for you?"  
  
Neil shook his head in puzzlement, having for so long taken for granted George's place in the scheme of things and having taken on board, hints in his direction that members of the Cabinet ought to set a traditional family type of image, especially from the example set to them all.  
  
"You used to be relied upon to bat for the right team," Neil spoke in tones of chilly reproof. "The Attorney General always spoke highly of your skill in extricating the British government from a difficult situation."  
  
"You mean that I was Mrs. Fixit whenever, morally speaking, you and your cronies were caught with your trousers down," George cut in derisively. "And in full view of the paparazzi. Sorry, Neil, but, as I've said before, I've moved on."  
  
"So what sort of political mischief are you cooking up, George?"   
  
"You heard what I said. I'm taking what work I choose that comes my way rather than letting you push the sort of squalid enterprises on me that you have in the past. I've had a run of judgements going against me and why? Because the cases were flawed from beginning to end. I would sooner take my chances with cases I actually believe in for a change. If I can use my skills to enable a woman who was seriously wronged by that ghastly Fenner character, then I'm doing something useful in my life."  
  
"You're sounding more and more like Deed every day," Neil scoffed.  
  
"Do you know what it's like to be raped?" George's tone switched suddenly from languid disdain to steely contempt.  
  
"No of course not, but neither do you."  
  
"No, but I do know what it's like for someone to use his strength against me."  
  
"By the way, George, How does Deed know about that picture that hung in our bedroom? And just how much were you responsible for him coming to retrieve your door key from me?"  
  
George smiled that evil, hugely self satisfied triumphant smile of hers.   
  
"That's what you really came to see me about, none of this 'we'll kiss and make up, darling' routine. That's not your style, either. There's always some ulterior motive in anything you do. That's your trouble. While John, charging over to see you to get my front door key from you at the House of Commons, how romantic."  
  
"Then there's nothing more to be said." Neil's suppressed anger boiled over. George took a step back automatically, suddenly aware that thanks to her secretary being ill, she was on her own.  
  
Fortunately, Neil turned on his heel and went to storm out of the door. Just before the door shut, George spoke in a theatrical aside.   
  
"I'm so exhausted these days."   
  
George made her way back to her computer. This one case was starting to accumulate a vast amount of material and she was starting to create sub folders to hold all the associated material. Fortunately, she held all the information she wanted to know which stretched over time and the complex relationships at Larkhall. She shivered inside when some of the memories of her day at Larkhall started to come back to her. She had felt very uncomfortable at the way it diminished her power over her environment. She had always taken that for granted as something that she enjoyed as of right from her position in society and her own force of personality.   
  
This wasn't some impartial company deal, she reflected. It only took the statement from Shell Dockley for the case to be started and her secretary, when she had condescended to get back to work from her sickbed, to start typing out the summonses which needed to be served. It was curious that she was having some sort of renaissance in her approach to legal work which, for the first time, involved real people with whom, in her detached way, she could not help identifying with to a certain extent. She cursed the way, though, that her secretary who knew her way through the complexities of her cases and records, left her to sort her way through what seemed like the reams of random post which had landed on the front doormat. Perhaps, she ought to make a good resolution to be nicer to her and then maybe she wouldn't have been left in the lurch today.   
  
On a whim to ease her feelings of frustration and anger against inanimate paperwork, she phoned the one person for a casual chat which, in reality, was the person she felt safest with, John.  
  
"Deed," he said automatically.  
  
"John, darling," the very familiar aristocratic drawl answered him. "I have just had that pathetic drip, Neil Houghton at my office. He was complaining about the way you took the key to my house away from him. You must have seriously offended him."  
  
John laughed heartily down the phone. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask George how she could have put up with him all this time but he refrained from the comment that would make George feel defensive. He well knew that a defensive George would suddenly bite back.  
  
"I'm glad that I had that effect on him. I am sure that you sent him on his way."   
  
George laughed that slightly flirtatious laugh of hers. It was like the old days when he would phone up from some town where he was sent as defence barrister on one of his crusades while she was in the City of London, starting to make her reputation. Things were simpler in those days before in later years, she found out that the circuit was a very convenient mechanism to enable his philandering and he would make up by being extra nice to her on the phone, the morning after. While John was only aware of her lively flow of conversation and apparent good spirits, deep down, her own spirits had plunged abruptly into that feeling of desolation which she covered so well with that perfect mask of hers. Jo was in the relationship, the woman she had once labelled Miss Oxfam. George's newfound feeling of not wanting to see her hurt confused her even though what she was doing would be instrumental in this if it ever came out. This was definitely not the good old days, even though she was tempted just for those few minutes to pretend a little. It made life easier to bear. 


	101. Part One Hundred And One

Part One Hundred And One   
  
Karen spent the rest of the day in a state of suspended animation. She got on with her tasks, sorted out minor problems on the wing, and outwardly maintained her usual professional exterior. But she was constantly, uncomfortably aware of the extraordinarily heavy weight of guilt tinged with loss pressing down on her. Cassie and Roisin had been right, part of her did miss Fenner. She missed the constant sparring, the way he could keep Di and Sylvia in order, and yes, she was forced to admit it, she did feel some regret for the good times she'd had with him. Oh, don't be so bloody stupid, she told herself furiously. He raped you, he took you for a fool on numerous occasions, you should be glad he's dead. She needed to grieve for Fenner properly, but now wasn't the time for that. Above all, she had to keep herself and if possible Yvonne out of the grasp of the law. This struck her as ironic. On Sunday afternoon, it had been Yvonne who was disposing of any evidence that linked her daughter to Fenner's body, yet that was where Yvonne's fear of the law seemed to stop. Yvonne was the convicted criminal. She knew what it would mean if any of them, Karen included, were to be found in possession of the knowledge that Fenner had been murdered. Yet it was she, Karen, who appeared to be the most concerned about their legal safety. She had a visit from Grayling in the middle of the afternoon, asking where Fenner was and wanting to know what Karen had done to try and find him. She simply had to tell him that they'd tried to contact Fenner at home, and that they'd got no reply. After all, what else could she do? When it came to the time she usually left for home, Karen half contemplated simply staying on, finding anything to keep her brain vaguely occupied. But she had to go, she had to see how Yvonne was doing.   
  
When she drew up in front of Yvonne's, she could see that the Rover was utterly spotless. Yvonne must have extended her cleaning up after her daughter to the car. Karen paused for a moment, haunted by the thought that Fenner had possibly traveled to his last destination in that car. she shivered. She had to banish thoughts like that, especially in front of Yvonne. If Yvonne was ever aware of the confusing feelings of grief and occasional pity that Karen felt for Fenner's killing, she would feel thoroughly betrayed. How odd, thought Karen as she walked to the front door, but that right now, she seemed to be betraying everyone apart from the man himself. When she opened the door, Yvonne looked briefly surprised to see Karen on the doorstep.   
  
"I wanted to see how you were," Said Karen, as she walked in, feeling that this was a pretty inane comment to have made.   
  
"I'm knackered," Said Yvonne truthfully. "Lauren spent most of last night waking herself up from bad dreams."   
  
"Hardly surprising," Said Karen.   
  
"I feel like I'm repeating part of my life," continued Yvonne, moving towards her lounge. "Charlie did exactly the same thing. The first time he came home after doing something like that, he looked like he was on something. He used to say it gave him a buzz to have that much power over someone. But a high is always followed by a low, and Charlie had just as many nightmares as Lauren will. I didn't want her to go the same way as Charlie," Yvonne finally finished, the tears she'd kept from her daughter now allowed to spill over. Seeing that this was at least something she could begin to deal with, Karen took Yvonne's hand and led her to the sofa. They sat with their arms round each other, Karen gently trying to soothe away some of the pain, and Yvonne clinging on with dear life.   
  
"I can't believe she did it," Said Yvonne between sobs. "She knows what I went through in prison, and she knows that Atkins doesn't automatically mean bad any more. Why the hell does she think I've gone straight ever since I got out? Apart from what we've got for our own protection, which I wouldn't have in the house if it wasn't absolutely necessary, we've stayed on the right side of the law. Ritchie was bad through and through, and I have to deal with enough guilt about him to last me a lifetime, but I wanted her to be different. She won't even talk to me about it."   
  
"You need to give her time," Said Karen gently.   
  
"I need to know what she did," Said Yvonne vehemently. "I need to know what my daughter is capable of." Karen reached for the box of tissues on the coffee table and handed them to Yvonne.   
  
"What did you do with the gun?" She asked.   
  
"It's lying at the bottom of the Thames," Said Yvonne succinctly. "Along with the spade she buried him with. I guess you saw the car when you arrived, there's not a single trace of Fenner left in there, not that I think there was to start with."   
  
"And where's Lauren?"   
  
"Asleep, the last time I looked in on her. She didn't get much last night so I knocked her out with one of my sleeping pills. She'll probably be awake soon though."   
  
"Will you let me talk to her?" Asked Karen, not quite sure where the request had come from.   
  
"Sure," Said Yvonne, "I can't promise how communicative she'll be though."   
  
Karen made her way upstairs and approached Lauren's bedroom which overlooked the back of the house and gave her a beautiful view of the garden and swimming pool. Karen softly pushed the door open and sat down in the armchair next to Lauren's bed. Lauren was lying on her side with her back to Karen, but Karen knew that she wasn't asleep.   
  
"Lauren," Karen said softly but firmly, "Turn over and talk to me." Capitulating without a second thought, Lauren turned over to face Karen.   
  
"I thought you were Mum," She said, her voice still drowsy from the sedative Yvonne had given her mid morning.   
  
"And why don't you want to talk to her?"   
  
"She wants to know too much," Said Lauren resignedly. "She's got this weird idea that talking about what I did is likely to help. It never worked with dad, so why should it work with me. Besides, her overall concern seems to be about what I actually did, not how I feel about it." When Lauren said this, Karen was briefly reminded of Ritchie's slightly narcissistic way of expecting those around him to focus on him.   
  
"And you think I don't?" Said Karen, knowing for certain now that she really didn't want to know what Lauren had done to Fenner.   
  
"No," Replied Lauren, "Knowing the gory details isn't your style. The only reason you're here is because you want to know why, not how." Karen smiled slightly at Lauren's clear understanding, in spite of the after effects of sleeping pills.   
  
"You said that Ritchie asked you to do it."   
  
"Yeah, he did. He was so sorry about what he did to you. You might not believe it, but he was. You were something special to him, something different. At first, he thought he was just doing what Snowball needed him to do, to find a way for the gun to get in to Larkhall. But he got in too deep. He didn't expect to feel as much as he did for you."   
  
"Can I see his letter?" Karen found herself asking, out of some nameless curiosity to fill in some of the gaps.   
  
"Sure," Said Lauren, pointing to the dressing-table, where sat the familiar prison issue envelope. Karen walked over and picked it up, returning to her chair. Wondering quite what can of worms she was opening, she began to read.   
  
"Dear Lauren,   
  
You're probably more furious with me than Mum is right now. But you know me, I don't do a hard life. I never have, and now I never will. You probably think all this is my own fault, and yeah, I suppose most of it is. But that's another thing isn't it, us, the Atkins family, we don't do blame. Only, it ain't quite worked out like that. I can't ask Mum for what I need you to do, because she won't do it. She never was a real Atkins, only in name. But you and me, Lauren, we've got Charlie Atkins' blood in us all the way. Lauren, I need you to get rid of Fenner for me. Don't throw this away until you've read what I have to say. You were there through the whole of the trial like Mum was, so you heard that stupid wanker of a barrister we had first, trying to pull Karen Betts' evidence to shreds because of what I think he was told by Fenner. Lauren, Fenner did rape Karen, I know he did. You don't sleep with as many women as I have, without knowing when something just isn't right. Lauren, a bit of me loved her. I know that's not how it was supposed to be, but I did, probably still do. She didn't deserve what I did to her. But I can't put any of that right now. This is why I'm asking you to get Fenner out of the picture for good. I can't put right the things I've done, but if you'll do this one thing for me, I can take away one of the worst things that's ever happened to her. You know that Fenner deserves a dose of the Atkins justice as well as I do. Please do this for me, Lauren, please. Don't tell Mum I've asked you. She's stayed on the straight and narrow since she got out, and we both know she won't be in favour of doing what's right. But you're still my sister, and you weren't Charlie Atkins' protégé for nothing. The best shooter in the East End is my little sister.   
  
I'm proud of you Sis,   
  
Ritchie."   
  
When Karen looked up after reading it through, she had tears in her eyes.   
  
"Forgive and forget, that's my brother," Said Lauren dryly. "Especially when he wanted something, and he's right, I wasn't Charlie Atkins' favourite protégé for nothing. It doesn't mean I'm cut out for it, though. I probably look totally calm and collected to you, but I'm not. Doing what I did yesterday, has totally done me in, but that doesn't mean I regret it." Karen privately thought that Lauren looked a trifle insane, not calm and collected at all.   
  
"Will you talk to Yvonne?" Asked Karen, her voice not feeling entirely her own.   
  
"Yeah, just not today. We both need some decent sleep before we start on that one. Mum isn't going to let it rest until she knows everything, and right now, I haven't got the energy to even start, never mind finish."   
  
"I don't know how to feel about this," Said Karen, not really knowing where that had come from.   
  
"I know," Said Lauren, "And if I know Mum, how you feel about this is probably the last thing she can think about. I'm not asking you to be grateful or anything else equally as ridiculous to me for getting rid of Fenner. It was something Ritchie wanted me to do, and because it was his last request, I did it. That's all there is to it."   
  
"How can you be so matter of fact about it?" Asked an utterly mystified Karen.   
  
"You should have seen me last night," Replied Lauren, "I woke up screaming about four times because I thought it was him finishing me off, not the other way round. Some might call that divine retribution. I will give Mum the answers she wants, but not now." Karen got up to go.   
  
"Will you be okay?" She asked Lauren, mentally kicking herself for the sheer ludicrousness of the enquiry.   
  
"No, probably not for a long time," Replied Lauren. "Tell Mum to get some sleep, and I'll talk to her tomorrow." As Karen walked down the stairs, she wondered what it was that made some people frightened to their core by the committing of serious crime, and others take it as a day to day occurrence. Lauren was right, Yvonne was only an Atkins by name, but both Ritchie and Lauren were born with Atkins blood, part of the Atkins gene pool, and therefore destined in some way to fulfill the Atkins family traditions, no matter how far across that imperceptible line between right and wrong it would take them. 


	102. Part One Hundred And Two

Part One Hundred And Two   
  
Lauren didn't reappear downstairs until the middle of Tuesday morning. She'd wanted to give her and her mother some space from each other, and to regain some of her mental equilibrium before they had the very difficult conversation that was looming on the horizon as a source of anguish and heartache for both of them. Walking in to the kitchen, Lauren realised that she hadn't eaten since Sunday morning. Her appetite seemed to have gone out of the window with other normal things like sleep and sticking to the right side of the law. Her mother was sat at the kitchen table, reading the morning paper and smoking a cigarette.   
  
"Do you want some breakfast?" Yvonne asked, for the moment trying to stay on safer ground.   
  
"An apple will do me fine," Said Lauren, walking over to the fruit bowl. Yvonne made no comment on the fact that Lauren hadn't eaten for two days. She had to be allowed to regain the normal things in life in her own way and in her own time. Lauren was about to pick a red apple from the bowl, but its rosiness reminded her of the blood that had flowed through Fenner's veins, until she'd halted its progress. Selecting a green one, she moved to sit opposite her mother.   
  
"How did you sleep?" Asked Yvonne.   
  
"I took another of your knock out pills, so not bad. You?" Yvonne merely shrugged, neither denying nor confirming that she'd had a restless night. Their conversation was stilted, both desperately trying to avoid the inevitable. Lauren was forced to admit that as it was her who'd plunged them both in to the abyss, it was her who should start.   
  
"Where's the gun?" She asked without preamble.   
  
"I chucked it and the spade in the Thames on Sunday night while you were asleep," Yvonne replied succinctly.   
  
"And the car?"   
  
"Spotless as the day it was bought." Lauren went quiet again. Now that the practicalities of what she had done had been dealt with, it was time for her to approach the incident itself.   
  
"Tell me, Lauren?" Prompted Yvonne eventually, totally unable to let the silence go on any longer.   
  
"It isn't quite that simple, Mum," Said Lauren, knowing the time had come, but still willing to postpone it for as long as possible.   
  
"Lauren, please, I need to know," Yvonne said quietly.   
  
"You might need to know," Said Lauren, feeding her apple core to a hovering Trigger. "But I don't think you really want to know, and I'm not sure I want to talk about it."   
  
"Lauren, I am not watching you go through the same cycle of killing someone, coming down off the high with bouts of bad dreams, heavy drinking and not eating that your father did. He used to be like this, insist that I didn't want to know what he'd actually done, hide himself away because he couldn't handle what he was capable of, and come out of it more bitter and twisted every time."   
  
"I'm not my dad," Said Lauren simply.   
  
"No?" Said Yvonne, her fear and anger beginning to peep through, "Because I'm really beginning to wonder." Lauren reached across the table and helped herself to one of her mother's cigarettes.   
  
"Let's not forget, Mum," She said, with all the pretence of calm, inner poise that she'd perceived in the prosecuting barrister at Ritchie's trial, "You're not exactly whiter than white yourself, now are you. Remember Renee Williams, for example?"   
  
"She isn't relevant to this discussion."   
  
"Don't talk crap," Said Lauren, her anger equaling her mother's. "This conversation's been waiting to happen for a very long time, and you know it. We're not just talking about Fenner, because it goes back a hell of a lot further than that. You're trying to make me talk about what I did to Fenner, when you've never once talked about engineering that cow's death by supposed nut allergy. You've buried that in the past, along with every other bad thing you'd rather not think about."   
  
"You know why I did that," Said Yvonne quietly, loathed to admit that her daughter was right. "It was either me or her."   
  
"And does Karen know about this little indiscretion?"   
  
"No, of course not," Said Yvonne disgustedly. "Killing someone is a hell of a lot more than a little indiscretion, which is why she doesn't know about it. This conversation's hard enough without bringing her in to it."   
  
"Well, tough," Said Lauren, getting up to make herself a coffee. "Because she's part of it now, or are you going to cast her feelings aside like everything else you don't want to contemplate."   
  
"If Karen's the topic of concern here," Threw back Yvonne, "It was you who murdered her rapist, not me."   
  
"I know that," Said Lauren, growing slightly calmer. "And when she came to see me yesterday, she didn't attempt to get answers out of me that wouldn't do her any good. She wanted to know why, not how. Most of all, she wanted to see Ritchie's letter. She had enough sense not to demand to know details that I didn't want to tell her and that she wouldn't be able to deal with. But we started with Renee Williams, so let's go back to her. You want me to own up as to how I killed Fenner, so it's only fair that you do the same about dad's old tart." Lauren dug a packet of best Brazilian out of the freezer and waved it in her mother's direction. On receiving a nod, she filled the percolator and returned to the table as the aroma of fresh coffee filled the kitchen.   
  
"You know what I did," Said Yvonne, the words eventually dragged from her unco-operative soul.   
  
"No, I don't," Said Lauren, "Not exactly."   
  
"I put ground nuts in the salt cellar and made sure it was on the table she normally used." Yvonne had said this in a monotone voice that clearly showed her need to display the facts and the facts only, with her feelings about the whole thing remaining hidden.   
  
"Where's all that feeling gone, Mum?" Lauren cajoled, "Like you're expecting me to have?"   
  
"Watching her die," Replied Yvonne, "That haunted me for months. She might have deserved everything she got, Lauren, but that doesn't mean it was right."   
  
"What about Dad then? Didn't he deserve what happened to him? After everything he did to you, Mum, he deserved nothing. He tried to fob you off with a million, and after the way he'd screwed you around."   
  
"As it seems to be the day for home truths," Said Yvonne, finally seizing her opportunity to find out something she'd wondered about for a long time. "It was you who arranged Charlie's last ever pizza delivery, wasn't it." She nailed Lauren with her, by now, famous stare. Lauren might be an Atkins, but she couldn't maintain eye contact with such a look as this one.   
  
" You know it was," Replied Lauren quietly. "What he did to you, that hurt me more than anything in my life. I couldn't bear the thought of having him at home again, trying to run his business like an old dinosaur regaining his old stomping ground. He was planning to carry on with life as if nothing had happened, as if you didn't even exist. I couldn't let him do that, Mum, I just couldn't." Yvonne put out a hand and took one of Lauren's.   
  
"Lauren, tell me what happened with Fenner," She said gently. Knowing that the time had finally come, Lauren lit herself another cigarette.   
  
"I stalked him," She began, "found out what he did, who he did it with. I followed him, finding out what shifts he usually did, where he bought his fags, the pubs he used. There wasn't anything I didn't know about his pathetic little life. Do you know what's funny, not in all that time did he go near a woman. Either he was still getting it on the inside, or he'd decided to turn over a new leaf. I started following him the week after the funeral. When Ritchie wrote me his letter and begged me to get rid of Fenner, he told me I wasn't Charlie Atkins' protege for nothing. So, I decided to do it properly. There wasn't one stone I left unturned. But then came the problem of where to do it. Fenner lives in a typical suburban street, full of families and nosy neighbours. I'm not going to tell you about where he is, because the less you know about anything concrete, the better. Suffice it to say that at this time of year, he'll have plenty of dead leaves for company. So, I followed him on Sunday when he went for his usual drink with the lads at his local pub. All they could talk about was fucking football. Why is it that men can spout shit for hours on end without even noticing? He didn't see me there, too interested in the match and his pint. I followed him back to his house. I did pretty much what Snowball did to Karen, when he was trying to find his door key. He wasn't stupid, he wasn't about to argue with an Atkins and a loaded gun. He kept calling me Atkins, like he did to you and probably like he did when he talked about Ritchie. The further away from the city I drove, the more rattled he became. I made him get out of the car, and I gave him the spade. I forced him to walk ahead of me in to the forest, and I stood with the gun on him as he dug his own grave. Mum, if he hadn't been so pathetically taken in by Merriman, Ritchie wouldn't now be in his own grave. That's what I kept thinking as I watched him digging. When he realised what he was digging, he kept asking me why, why was I doing this to him, what had he ever done to me. God, there's no one who sounds more innocent than the perpetual offender. You told me that, after a few weeks in Larkhall. I shot him, like Ritchie was shot, so that he couldn't move, but was still alive. I wanted to make someone suffer for what Ritchie had done to us, and I think I used Ritchie's request as an excuse. The fucking best excuse I've ever had to make someone like Fenner suffer. He looked so pathetic sat there. When I let some of the earth fall on his face, he pleaded with me. The stupid git still thought I'd let him go." Lauren suddenly became quiet. Yvonne stared at her, not quite able to believe that this was her daughter telling her all this.   
  
"You buried him alive?" Yvonne asked, almost unable to get the words out.   
  
"Yeah, I did," Said Lauren, "And if you're about to tell me how mad that is, and how I must have a screw loose, then yes, I agree with you. I don't know what happened to me on Sunday. I was high on Adrenaline, higher than I've ever been on any drug. I felt good about it, and that scares the shit out of me. But I can't take back what I did, any more than you can. Part of you would like to be able to put this one right for me, but you can't do that, Mum. This was my choice, something Ritchie asked me to do, and something I had to do. If there are any consequences, and going by my total stupidity at leaving the cartridge case behind, there probably will be. But if there are, they're mine, not yours, not Karen's, not anyone's. In his letter, Ritchie said that as a family, we don't do blame, but he was wrong. I killed Fenner, Mum, no one else, and it'll be my freedom on the block if and when the time comes. Mum, I don't regret killing Fenner, he had it coming."   
  
"I don't know what's happened to you," Said Yvonne after a while.   
  
"I've grown up," Said Lauren, "That's what's happened to me. If doing what I did on Sunday has done anything for me, it's made me grow up. I ain't a kid any more, Mum, I've got to deal with what's coming to me, like Dad did, like you did, and like Ritchie did. I'm part of this family, what's left of it, for good or bad, and one thing we Atkins women don't do, is hide from who we are." 


	103. Part One Hundred And Three

Part One Hundred And Three   
  
George's feeling of depression continued. She didn't seem to have the energy to drag herself out of it this time. It was like she was being persistently pulled down and down below the surface of the waters of misery. She'd kept up the pretence of outward cheerfulness on the phone with John, but she doubted whether it had really worked. John more than anyone had always been able to penetrate her defenses, see right through her mask of indifference to the feelings that were swamping her. Through Tuesday and Wednesday, it only became harder to maintain the act. She was like a wild animal, who knew that the winter was approaching and simply wanted to crawl in to its hole to hide, maybe even to die. She'd needed what John had given her last week, more than she liked to admit, but that didn't mean she should have done it. John had temporarily pulled her out of the downward spiral she seemed destined to tread, only to fling her back on course, with the added force of guilt to accelerate her progress in to her old destructive behaviour. She knew that what she was doing to herself was odd, wrong even, but it helped. She needed the force of willpower that it took to maintain her old desperate standby, in order to reassure herself that her life wasn't entirely out of her control. Like the vast majority of people who suffer from depression and other anxiety-related states of being George did her best to hide her lowest moments from anyone around her. It would have been a mark of her lack of self-control if she'd ever revealed any of this to anyone. But John had nearly always seen through her, damn him. She'd usually found it impossible to hide how she really felt from him, except perhaps during that time just after Charlie was born and he was so besotted with his daughter that he totally failed to see what was happening under his very nose.   
  
In the middle of Wednesday afternoon, it dawned on her that her father was coming over for dinner. She'd almost forgotten, even though Daddy had come over for dinner on Wednesdays since time immemorial. Picking up the phone, she reached him on his mobile, and his continual inability to understand how it worked made her smile for the first time since Neil's visit.   
  
"Daddy, it's George. Change of plan, can I come over to you this evening instead?"   
  
"Yes, I don't see why not."   
  
"I'll still cook, but I need to get out of the house." Saying that she'd be over about seven, George ended the call, wondering if her father might listen to her. She needed to attempt to make some sense of this with someone, and it looked like her father was all she had left. She didn't always want to hear what he had to say, but he was always honest with her, some might even say brutally honest. But that's what she needed.   
  
She went to the supermarket on her way home, and not being able to come up with any inspiration for what to cook him, she simply picked up her father's three favourite foods, smoked salmon, steak and strawberries, with appropriate accompaniments. She had absolutely no desire to eat food of any kind, but she would be forced to make an effort in front of Daddy, so that he wouldn't start asking awkward questions. When she arrived, and parked her car next to his on the gravel drive, it was done with slightly less of her usual flourish. As she let herself in, she was greeted by his magnificent shaggy blue lurcher. Her father always went hunting and shooting with this dog, but George had caught him on more than one occasion feeding it extras. She was able to let herself straight in to the house, because when she'd married John, her father had made her keep her door key. He'd said that this was still her home, there if she ever needed a bolthole. Had Daddy had some premonition of what would eventually happen between her and John, she never knew. She hadn't ever taken him up on this long standing offer, but it was always nice to know she had somewhere else to go if necessary.   
  
"Daddy," She called, first putting the Tescos carrier bags in the kitchen.   
  
"I'm in here," Replied Joe Channing's deep, sonorous voice. She found him in his study at the back of the house. Study? Den was probably a more accurate description. This was the room where Joe kept all his law books, and an enormous mahogany desk together with a large armchair and a small drinks cabinet. There was a picture of George and her mother on the wall opposite his desk, and George knew he often looked up at it as he worked. He was sitting in the armchair reading the paper.   
  
"Hello," She said, leaning over to kiss his cheek. "How are you?"   
  
"Reading about more of Deed's controversial decisions. I think he sets out to purposefully annoy the rest of the judiciary." George grinned. It was nice to be back in familiar surroundings, to be with her father, whose reactions to change would forever be the same. "Ah yes," Said Joe, appearing to remember something. "And I heard a rumour floating round the Lord Chancellor's department that you were persuaded to visit one of Her Majesty's prisons last week."   
  
"Ah," Said George, feeling as though she was fifteen again, and having to confess to some minor misdemeanour or indiscretion.   
  
"You look as guilty as the time I discovered you had been seducing my gardener when you were seventeen," Said Joe, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Remembering the utter humiliation of the conversation that had followed this discovery, George couldn't help blushing as she laughed. Good God, she thought, that was thirty years ago. Seducing one of Daddy's servants had simply been a new form of entertainment to while away the long summer holidays. Then she became serious.   
  
"I got in to an argument with John in court, and he held me in contempt."   
  
"Might I remind you that this is the third time you've done this," Said her father, looking at her sternly.   
  
"Yes, thank you, Daddy, but I know that. He and someone, who is probably destined to become his next conquest, came up with the idea of my seeing inside a prison, seeing the parts of a prison that barristers don't normally see. So, I spent part of Thursday shadowing a wing governor from Her Majesty's Prison Larkhall."   
  
"Larkhall, isn't that the prison where that Pilkinton woman constructed a bomb?"   
  
"The very same. The woman I shadowed, and who helped the Deed come up with the idea in the first place was one of the prosecution witnesses for that trial, Karen Betts."   
  
Whilst she prepared their meal, she told him some of the highlights of her brief time behind bars.   
  
"I was offered a gin and tonic by one of the inmates," She said, removing the stalks from the strawberries before putting them in the fridge.   
  
"I trust you didn't accept it?" Asked Joe, not entirely certain of the answer he would get.   
  
"Of course," She said, "I could hardly do otherwise with the wing governor not so far away. Oh, and I met a prostitute who sends her son to your old school."   
  
"What!" Joe almost choked on his pre-dinner whisky. George grinned.   
  
"I knew you'd be like that. Yes, one David Saunders has a mother serving time at Her Majesty's pleasure."   
  
"This country's going to the dogs," Grumbled Joe.   
  
"Oh, don't be like that, Daddy. It's better than him ending up in a similar place to his mother."   
  
"Well," Said Joe, his voice rumbling like threatening thunder. "It shouldn't happen. The son of a prostitute going to a school like that. It just isn't on."   
  
"You used to say that about John," Said George thoughtfully. "I remember, when I said that I was going to marry him, you said that you didn't want your daughter marrying some baker's boy who'd risen to heights he couldn't possibly maintain."   
  
"Yes, and I was right wasn't I."   
  
"About our marriage, maybe. But you can't say the same about his career, which was your point of argument at the time." Joe briefly found himself cursing the day he'd ever encouraged his daughter to become an advocate for the law. It gave her far too many skills in argumentative tactics.   
  
They sat at the worn oak kitchen table to eat. It wasn't often Joe used the dining-room any more. This reminded George of the happy mealtimes of her childhood, and those very quiet, not so happy ones after her mother had been killed in a car crash when she was ten. George could remember her mother baking bread at this table. Even though her mother had married an up and coming barrister, destined one day to be a judge and then a law lord, this hadn't meant that she had been willing to relinquish the art of cooking for her family to any random servant. George could also remember the occasions when, after a day's shooting, her father would clean his gun at this table, and her mother would shout at him for cluttering up her workspace. George ate very sparingly, surreptitiously feeding most of her steak to a slavering lurcher.   
  
"You spoil that dog rotten," Her father commented.   
  
"No more than you do," replied George with a smile.   
  
"You don't eat enough," Added Joe, "Hardly enough to feed a sparrow, and you're looking thinner than is really good for you." George opened her mouth to argue with him, but shut it again, biting her tongue to prevent her from justifying her decrease in size. Joe seemed almost to be waiting for some sort of objection to his comment.   
  
"Is something wrong?" He asked after a while.   
  
"Why?" She asked, always with the irritating habit of answering a question with a question.   
  
"Usually if I comment on the amount your eating, or not eating in this case, I get a barrage of protestation to the effect that you are perfectly all right and that it isn't any of my business." George gave him a brief, tired-looking smile.   
  
"You, John, and even Neil, blast him, keep saying it. I'm tired of arguing." He fixed his gaze on her with all the fatherly assurance of thinking that he could read her like a book.   
  
"George, you never get tired of arguing. It's how you live, I'd even go as far as to say it's how you survive."   
  
"Daddy, let's not continue this conversation." Joe looked exasperated.   
  
"That cabinet minister of yours must be rubbing off on you if avoiding any kind of confrontation is now your best line of defence." George visibly winced.   
  
"I doubt it," She said, some of the familiar bite returning to her tone. "Seeing as he left a few weeks ago." Joe looked surprised.   
  
"Well, I can't say I'm not pleased. I was talking to Deed about him not so long ago."   
  
"Oh, he didn't tell me," Said George, wondering just what John had told her father.   
  
"Yes, just after that ludicrous trial of the couple who very successfully bombed that prison you went to see." George slightly relaxed. There was every possibility that her father wasn't aware of what Neil had done to her.   
  
"Well, you don't need to worry any more," She said. "He's gone, and he won't be coming back."   
  
"What happened? Or is fatherly interest not permitted on this occasion." George smiled. He would show fatherly interest whether it was wanted or not. But she couldn't quite hide the slight tremor in her voice when she said,   
  
"You don't need to know, Daddy. It's not important."   
  
"By the look on your face, I would dare to disagree. Clearly it is important."   
  
"Daddy, I mean it. This isn't up for discussion." Her voice had risen slightly, taking on the edge of panic that he hadn't heard in her since he'd tried to talk to her about why his one and only grandchild was living full time with Deed, not with her. Seeing that his perseverance would be fruitless, Joe abandoned this topic of conversation while they finished their meal and George stacked the plates in the dishwasher.   
  
When they were seated in the lounge, George joined her father in an after dinner cigarette.   
  
"At least your taking up this habit again means you won't prevent me from smoking in your house and banish me to the terrace," Said her father with a smile.   
  
"I think I started again just to annoy Neil," Replied George dryly. "But then the addiction kicks in and letting go isn't so easy." Joe was inclined to think that she was talking about something far more serious than smoking, but as she didn't elaborate, he decided not to probe.   
  
"Daddy, can I tell you something?" Asked George, feeling the urge to confess suddenly becoming unbearably strong.   
  
"Do I want to hear it?" Asked Joe, knowing that for her to ask, it must be something serious.   
  
"Probably not," George conceded, "But I expect you'll tell me how stupid I am, and maybe that's what I need to hear."   
  
"I am as ever, intrigued," Replied Joe, raising his eyebrows.   
  
"I've done something incredibly silly," George began. Realising by her tone who this must involve, Joe said,   
  
"Are you seeing Deed again?" George almost laughed. Perhaps her father really did know her as well as he thought he did.   
  
"No," She said, "At least, not exactly." This was her father after all, and she found it almost impossible to find the words necessary to explain exactly how John had come back in to the picture. Observing a hint of embarrassment in her face, Joe got up and walked to the sideboard, pouring himself a whisky and her a glass of Martini. With his back to her, he said,   
  
"George, going to bed with one's ex, is never a good idea."   
  
"I know," Said George miserably. "But I think I needed cheering up."   
  
"And Deed will never say no to a beautiful woman," Added Joe, handing George her drink and sitting down on the sofa next to her. "But why now," Joe persisted, "why suddenly now, when as far as I'm aware, this hasn't happened since you were married to Deed." George turned her face slightly away from her father. Even now, even after all these years, she still found it extremely hard to talk to him about anything vaguely personal. Observing her difficulty, Joe turned her face so that she was forced to look at him.   
  
"Now, you listen to me," He said quietly but firmly. "Your mother ought to be saying things like this to you, but as she isn't here, this parental duty falls to me. There isn't much I don't know about you and Deed, and what I don't know, I would suggest that I neither need nor want to know. So, talk."   
  
"I don't know where to start," Said George, realising that her instinct to confess all to Daddy had after all been the right one.   
  
"Start with Haughton, because I think I'm right in suggesting that this has something to do with him."   
  
"You're determined to get this out of me, aren't you."   
  
"Yes." Feeling thoroughly ashamed of what Neil had done to her, George turned her gaze away from him.   
  
"Neil gave me a black eye," She said, mentally preparing herself for Joe's reaction.   
  
"What!" The bark of fury made George inwardly retreat. "When did this happen?" Joe continued.   
  
"You remember the last time Neil was there when you came over for dinner, about a month ago? Well, after you'd gone, we got in to an argument about why I couldn't achieve a not guilty verdict for Pilkinton and Atkins. You know me, Daddy, I always have to have the last word, and it appeared to be one insult too many."   
  
"That's absolutely no excuse. If there's one thing a man never does it's to ever strike his woman." Briefly smiling at her father's insistence, George said,   
  
Well, it seems he doesn't agree with you."   
  
"What happened?"   
  
"I drove away like a bat out of hell."   
  
"Where did you go?" Asked Joe, thinking that he could work out the rest.   
  
"I stayed with John."   
  
"Why didn't you come here?"   
  
"It's stupid, I know, but I was ashamed. I didn't want you to see me like that."   
  
"What was Deed's reaction?"   
  
"He let me stay there, and when Neil came to court the next day to try and talk to me, John held him up against the wall and threatened to see him doing time in the scrubs if he ever did anything like that to me again." Joe smiled broadly.   
  
"Quite right too." Then a thought seemed to occur to him. "Was that when?..." He didn't seem able to voice the words, you slept with him.   
  
"No, of course not," Replied George in defence of John's complete sensitivity on that night. "Not even John is that presumptuous. Daddy, don't be angry with John for this. It was me who went to him in the first place. He was good to me when I needed it, and that's all there is too it."   
  
"But why the need to confess? It's something you've always avoided wherever possible." The dredging up of the real reason why her two evenings with John were getting to her so much, brought tears to George's eyes.   
  
"I feel guilty," She said, unable to keep the tears at bay any longer. His daughter looked so desolate, so miserable, that Joe put aside his usual avoidance of displays of affection and put a strong, comforting arm round her shoulders.   
  
"What's there to feel guilty about?" He asked softly, digging in his pocket for the clean handkerchief that perpetually resided there. "Deed is quite capable of refusing. Just because he never does, is hardly something you should feel guilty about."   
  
"Not about him," Said George disgustedly, "I feel guilty about Jo, Jo Mills."   
  
"Well, if we're talking about two people who certainly shouldn't be having a clandestine affair, it's Deed and Jo Mills. That is, after all, why she was brought up in front of the Professional Conduct Committee."   
  
"Daddy, that's not the point and you know it. She and I have discovered some common ground lately, even managed to be civil to each other for more than five minutes. We've been working together on this case I'm forming against Prison Service area management. We seem to have put aside all the old points of friction, and then I go and do this to her." She took her father's handkerchief and wiped away her tears, loathing herself for revealing how weak she was to him.   
  
"Mrs. Mills is another one who is quite capable of looking after herself," Put in Joe, not quite able to get his head round his daughter's new way of thinking.   
  
"I know," Said George, "I just feel so wrong."   
  
"Now listen," Said her father firmly. "Yes, maybe with hindsight, you shouldn't have slept with Deed again, but as long as you don't intend to repeat that event, you're only course of action is to forget it and move on. Jo Mills need never know about it. Deed is hardly likely to tell her, now is he."   
  
"I know. I just wasn't expecting to feel like this."   
  
"The only guilt I'm concerned about this evening," Said Joe, some of his old bluster returning, "Is that of Haughton for daring to raise a hand to my daughter. If this were two centuries ago, I'd have him clapped in irons." George smiled.   
  
"There's nothing anyone can do about a man like him," She said resignedly, "He's gone from my life now, and he won't be coming back. Please, just forget it." Giving his daughter a look that clearly said, how can I, Joe got up to refill their drinks.   
  
"So," He said, "Tell me more about this case against the prison service." As George filled him in, she still had a nagging doubt about what her father might do to Neil, and her guilt about Jo certainly wasn't in any danger of abating.   
  
When the topic of the case had been exhausted, George went quiet for a moment.   
  
"Daddy," She suddenly said, "Have I failed you?" He stared at her.   
  
"What sort of a question is that. Of course not."   
  
"Are you sure?" Asked George, desperately needing the kind of reassurance that only a parent can provide, and which far too many don't.   
  
"George, I couldn't possibly have been more proud of you than I am," Said Joe, this being something he'd never been afraid of saying to his one and only child. "Yes, you've made the odd mistake in your life, but so do we all. The important thing is that you've come through them and moved on."   
  
"There's one thing you're conveniently forgetting in all this," Said George, the alcohol she'd consumed making her able to voice this so hard to deal with of all her failures. "You can't exactly say I made a success of being a mother, can you." Wondering where this had suddenly come from, Joe fixed his daughter with a worried gaze.   
  
"George, anything I may have said at the time, was buried and forgotten about long ago. No, I didn't and still can't understand why you felt the way you did when Charlie was born, but that didn't and hasn't and never will make me love you any less." George didn't know how to respond to this. "When you and Deed went your separate ways," He continued, "I remember having a very long argument with him about why Charlie was living with him and not you. At the time, I said that a child's place was with her mother, but Deed defended you on that point to the end. He couldn't have fought more for you that evening than if he'd been defending you in court. I still don't understand a lot of what he said during that battle of wills, but he managed to convince me that for you, it was the right thing to do."   
  
"He never told me you'd talked to him about it," Said George, feeling an overwhelming gratitude for John's having defended her failure so vehemently.   
  
"I'm not surprised," Replied Joe, remembering some of the harsh things he'd said to John, both on the subject of George's inability to care for her child, and of John's infidelity. A while later when George drove home, perhaps with too much alcohol inside her, she shed a few tears for the times she'd lost with John. He might have treated her badly in his continual conquest of other women, but he had stood by her when she'd failed to do the thing that she thought should come naturally to any mother. She would be eternally grateful to him for that. She just wished that she didn't still need him for the kind of thing he'd given her last week, for the way he could always make her feel safe, and, she realised, for the love she wished he still had for her. 


	104. Part One Hundred And Four

Part One Hundred And Four   
  
It was the self important tread of Neil Houghton's footsteps along the echoing corridors of the Lord Chancellor's Department that told Sir Ian that he was going to be interrupted again. He laid down his papers with a sigh. If he knew one thing about the workings of the civil service in relation to ministers, it was that they would expect his time to be theirs but God forbid that he intruded into their space, their schedule, their time, their anything. The expectation that civil servants were to be obsequious and to deliver the impossible was the norm these days. Old timers told him when he was a young Administrative Trainee that it was all the dratted fault of that handbag swinging fearful woman Margaret Thatcher who first asked the question of a prospective official "Is he one of us?" As a fast stream young hopeful, he could remember those cold blue staring eyes turn round in his general direction and that grating female 'disgusted of Tonbridge Wells' voice reach out to his Head of Department and tare him off a strip. He had not given her the views which she wished to hear, so she told him, and she threatened him with a swift transfer to the outer reaches of the then Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. He would be banished forever to negotiate fiddly details with Iceland over the cod quota. He never forgot the way that he grovelled in apology to her and after that, the threat was never made again to him. Nor did it ever need to be made. The circus animal jumped before the ringmaster had need to crack the whip. He never forgot that important lesson. No matter who had come and gone at 10 Downing Street and which political party was in control, nothing had really changed. The ability to summon up a false smile of agreement with some of the ridiculous outpourings of these ministers was the same basic survival skill as being equipped with a double barrelled shotgun in going out into a jungle with man eating lions on the loose. The trouble was, no matter how the policies were changed from year to year, nothing ever got better. The golden rule was, don't let the minister ever hear of any possible bad news.   
  
All that worked very well until the day came when Sir Ian's career move, coinciding with his knighthood, took him to the Lord Chancellor's Department and, in turn, into the province of judges who, to his prim and proper way of thinking, were flamboyant would be actors. Donald Sinden would find himself in fine company with the very mannered, eccentric, Old Etonians with their very prickly individualism. Deed, of course, was the worst of all of them.  
  
"Ian," Neil demanded peremptorily of him. "Have you heard of this mad plan to start a civil action against Prison Service area management about some prison officer who was supposedly raped."  
  
Sir Ian raised his eyebrows at this. There was the expectation that whatever the politician breezed in through the door with, he would have instant awareness and knowledge. Sympathy with their views and an ability to put a spanner to lock tight together the nuts and bolts of their enterprises was taken as read. The politicians were there for the grand designs while the likes of Sir Ian were there for the technicalities.  
  
"Perhaps you had better start from the beginning, Neil." Sir Ian's smile was especially fixed and insincere.  
  
"I would have thought that you chaps would keep your ears to the ground," Came the brusque reply. "Still, if you must know, it's about this perpetual source of bad news, Larkhall Prison and one of the witnesses in the recent Atkins Pilkinton trial. A civil action being concocted to say that this man had been guilty of a series of misdemeanours and that some area management personnel people were a bit lax in not reining in this man. Of all the prisons up and down the country, every prison toddles on, day in day out, well enough and this hellhole causes trouble, left right and centre."  
  
"Let's put a few names to faces, Neil," Sir Ian talked in a suspicious tone. "I sat in the public gallery getting a stiff back on those hard benches following that trial. It might help, Neil. Who is the name of the accused?"  
  
"James Fenner," Neil replied shortly.  
  
"Ah, Neil. This is starting to make sense. I wouldn't buy a used car from that man. And who is the woman concerned?"  
  
"Karen Betts."   
  
"I remember her as well. If there is a civil action being taken, there must be either a solicitor or a barrister involved, and especially where an area administration of the Prison Service is concerned. I can hardly imagine Claims Direct taking on that sort of work," Sir Ian continued in his inquisitive way.  
  
"There is a barrister involved, Ian," Neil replied shortly.  
  
Sir Ian was growing more and more suspicious as time went on. He cast a longing sidelong glance at his papers on the side of his mahogany title and yearned to bury himself in the abstractions of the administration of the LCD. However, the matter in hand started the process of making connections in his mind.  
  
"Do I or you happen to know the name of this barrister, Neil?"  
  
The Cabinet Minister abruptly got up from his seat and did a short walk round the office to control his growing anger. He was getting the feeling that those in his life who were at one time, 'on board' and could be relied upon were asking too many awkward questions. At one time, his word was given and the deed would be done but there was an increasingly restless spirit around. The focus in his mind of his troubles was John Deed's aristocratic expression of disdain and he was the serpent who offered Eve the apple of temptation so that his ordered heaven was disturbed forever. There was a dangerous infection of spirit abroad that was a threat to his security as this new 'winter of discontent' had spread. First of all his money loving barrister and socialite ex partner who had always followed his lead had turned her powers of sarcasm on him, cast him out and seemed bent on some vindictive crusade. And now, this toadying official in the LCD had given him the brush off over George last time and seemed to be making awkwardness as a personal development plan.  
  
"You are asking a lot of difficult questions, Ian. I had expected you to be more helpful. You ought to be more careful."  
  
The whiplash of words lashed across Sir Ian's shoulders and instinctively, his head felt as if it was sinking into his shoulders as old painful memories came flooding back. He was becoming indiscreet of late and strange impulses burst through his mandarin reserve from time to time. But he was still able to ask the question that his curiosity demanded an answer too.  
  
"Just who is this barrister, Neil. I must know," Sir Ian asked meekly.  
  
"If I must humour your typical Civil service obsession with detail, George Channing."  
  
A light of understanding dawned in Sir Ian like an incandescent illumination which made everything clear. He shook his head in astonishment that this mere mortal with feet of clay could order him about.  
  
"Now I understand you, Neil. You do seem to have got yourself into a hole. You have an argument with George, you strike her and you wonder why she is not well disposed towards helping the government out. if you behave in such an ungentlemanly fashion, what do you expect?" Sir Ian stood up from his chair to confront the increasingly angry politician.  
  
"What possible connection is there between a little domestic upset and a barrister who seems to have got the bit between her teeth to indulge in some senseless, wrecking campaign?"  
  
"You mean, like the way that Deed behaves?"  
  
Neil laughed out loud in total incredulity at such a comparison. He could not imagine the slightest thing in common between George and that priggish man with using the law to stir up trouble and especially victimising the wealth creators who were the life blood to this country's economy. George's frequent trips to the shops around Oxford Street, her love of all the fine things in life and her mercenary approach to her work as a source of luxuries. Her sympathies towards the wealth creators was well known. She was no rabble rousing revolutionary, it was just that she had just gone off the rails a bit.  
  
Sir Ian could not believe the blindness of this man. Excellent though he might be at shuffling papers around at Cabinet meetings, he had no conception that his actions had driven George away. Who knows where this will end?  
  
"If you want my opinion, Neil, then I can see every reason why George might take up such a case. She has the ability, she may well have had enough of some of the cases you have steered her way and wants to prove herself as a barrister on her own. Most of all, there is no fury like a woman scorned or didn't anyone tell you that?" Sir Ian finished with a note of contempt as he gradually took courage into his hands, bit by bit.  
  
"You need to make the personal approach to her. Then you might get somewhere and maybe she'll drop the case."  
  
"She won't listen, dammit," Neil said, getting red in the face.  
  
"Then you have to work out a way to get her to listen," Sir Ian said calmly. He nearly said that this was the sort of task that Ministers routinely and arrogantly handed down to him but that would be definitely indiscreet.  
  
Neil stalked out without saying another word.  
  
With a sigh, Sir Ian returned to his papers.  
  
"So, how did you get on in your conversation with Deed, sir?" Lawrence James asked him.  
  
"Not bad, Lawrence," Sir Ian said with a certain amount of satisfaction. "Deed was vociferous in his support of his ex wife in pursuing the legal action against the prison Service and daring me to put a spoke in George's wheel. I said that this was a remarkable turnabout as to my recollection, I imagined that he himself would love to see his dream realised of putting his ex wife behind bars once and for all. He denied it hotly, saying it was only as Ms Channing transgressed the rules of standards of adversarial representation."  
  
"Does the man not see that he has no right to talk about transgressions?" the puritanical nature of Lawrence James waxed eloquently. "Has he no shame?"  
  
Sir Ian smiled thinly. While Lawrence James had every reason to violently object to John Deed's idiosyncratic nature and was fond of expounding at length on the subject, he carried on long after the point when Sir Ian was bored with talking about it and wished he would shut up. Zealous though he might be, Lawrence James could irritate him.  
  
"I pointed out to him that he seemed singularly well informed about his ex wife's thoughts and feelings and expressed my hopes that their relationship in court might be more harmonious in future. He smiled and said that there was just a reasonable chance that his ex wife's tempestuous nature might be tamed."  
  
"He was joking of course, sir Ian. What did you say?"  
  
"I told him 'Like the Taming of the Shrew' but he laughed that off. You never quite know where you are with him when he appears to make a joke. Anyway, we talked about the prison service and I dared him to visit a prison of his choice seeing that he has sent many people to prison in his time but had never seen the consequences of his actions."   
  
"Isn't that a little rash, sir," A worried Lawrence James interposed. "You do not know what he is capable of when let loose in any institution."  
  
"It's a calculated risk, Lawrence. I am banking on Deed making contact with the sort of flotsam and jetsam of society that might take the edge off his campaigning zeal. He might as well be enabled to go to the prison which is most in the news, this Larkhall Prison. For the first time in my life, I think that I had him wrongfooted as he did not expect this sort of reaction from me."  
  
"But what about the civil action that Ms Channing is bent on dragging the prison Service through, sir."  
  
Sir Ian stretched himself in his comfortable chair.  
  
"The situation hasn't changed essentially since I last had words with Deed. At that time, it appeared that Miss Betts, the woman concerned, was going to pursue this through the criminal courts. As the evidence hasn't properly come up to scratch, a civil case is being planned instead," Sir Ian explained   
  
"This will not involve the CPS or prejudice our harmonious relationship with them but if sufficient evidence arises in trial, a criminal case may still be brought. It is a risk, sir."   
  
"I don't know. I've worked in the Civil Service all my life to further my career which means to play everything safe. I am not bound to save a Cabinet Minister from the consequences of his actions in raising a hand to his partner any more than I was bound to do a favour for an unscrupulous Prison Governor who enabled a very dangerous man to be let off the hook in the rape of a fellow Prison Officer. I made a mistake at the time and, for once, our policy is 'hands off.' I've nannied too many politicians over the years and I just want an easy life."  
  
"It is strange for you to speak so, sir Ian. Ever since I have worked for you, I have felt that you have never tired in your efforts to maintain the Greater Good of this nation. You have changed."  
  
"You're young and ambitious, Lawrence, with a long way to go. I felt like you once but perhaps I'm getting old and tired. You may feel the same one day. Care for a drink?"  
  
Sir Ian reached out and poured a drink for Lawrence James and they relaxed in the subdued lighting and quiet of the office bearing the title stretching back to antiquity. 


	105. Part One Hundred And Five

Part One Hundred And Five   
  
On the Thursday morning, Karen was beginning to think that she couldn't keep this up much longer. As was her duty, she'd informed Grayling of Fenner's apparent disappearance, telling him that they'd tried to contact Fenner, and that she'd even been round to Fenner's house. This obviously wasn't true, but Karen had an act to keep up. But as Grayling had said, Fenner wasn't after all breaking the law in quitting his job without a by your leave, he was simply breaking his contract and denying himself a reference. So, Karen was forced to temporarily promote Sylvia to acting Principle Officer, while she searched around for a suitable replacement. She even found herself briefly thinking of Mark and wondering if he would ever come back to work at Larkhall. But she abandoned this thought as soon as it had appeared. Any working relationship she and Mark had once had was history, never to return. His presence would only complicate matters, when they were already more than complicated enough. She didn't know where she and Yvonne could go from here. She felt like they were in limbo, their relationship temporarily on hold until something happened one way or the other. Jesus, she thought, even from the grave he's putting a spanner in the works. She was surprised, therefore, when at around eleven o'clock, her phone rang. It was Ken, to tell her that there was a man at the gate to see her.   
  
"He says he's a high court Judge," Added Ken, "Looks too relaxed to be a judge, but there you are." Smiling ruefully, Karen said she'd be down in a minute.   
  
As she traversed the long, winding corridors from her office down to the gate lodge, she realised that her act would have to be sharper than ever to fool this man. He was the most skilled she'd ever met at seeing behind people's defences, at gently prising out the truth. Thinking that she would deserve a long holiday abroad if she pulled this one off, she let herself through the last set of gates. She forced a broad smile on to her face.   
  
"Hello," She said, "this is a nice surprise."   
  
"Your officer here," John said, gesturing to Ken, "Doesn't believe I'm a high court Judge." He said this with a smile because he knew that Karen was about to put Ken right.   
  
"Ken," Karen said, turning to him, "This is Mr. Justice Deed." Ken looked a trifle embarrassed.   
  
"It's just you don't look like a high court judge," He said, "You look too normal." John laughed.   
  
"Have you ever met a high court Judge," He asked.   
  
"No Sir," Ken replied, "It's the inmates who have experience of Judges, not us officers." As Karen led John through the various sets of gates, she said,   
  
"You've mystified him." John smiled.   
  
"It's nice to know I look vaguely human when I'm not behind the bench." Then, taking in the utterly miserable prison decor, he said, "How on Earth do you manage to work in such drab surroundings?"   
  
"Home Office budgets don't run to such niceties as interior design," She replied dryly.   
  
"At least my chambers at the Old Bailey look vaguely majestic." As Karen let them in to her office, she asked her secretary to bring them some coffee.   
  
"So," She said, sitting behind her desk and gesturing to John to take the chair opposite, "To what do I owe the pleasure."   
  
"Well, actually, I was at a loose end," He admitted with a sheepish grin, "A trial I was overseeing collapsed because the defendant pleaded guilty and I thought it was my duty to find out if my ex-wife behaved herself during her punishment last Thursday."   
  
"A follow up report on a whim?" Karen finished for him, her eyes twinkling.   
  
"Yes, you could say that," He replied.   
  
"Yes," Said Karen sardonically, "I've heard you're one for doing things on the spur of the moment."   
  
"Dare I ask who from?" He asked, though knowing it must either be from Jo or George, or both.   
  
"I never reveal my sources."   
  
"You've been spending too much time with George." Karen smiled.   
  
"Well, she certainly doesn't stand around waiting for things to happen. I saw her on Monday and I think area management are going to find themselves in hot water pretty soon."   
  
"Good. How's it going, working with Fenner and plotting behind his back." The smile was wiped off Karen's face at the mention of Fenner's name.   
  
"It's only what he's been doing to me since day one," She replied, trying to cover up her discomfort. "But yes, it isn't easy keeping up the act of professional tolerance when what I'd really like to do is wring his neck." She couldn't believe she'd said that. She was sat here, making light conversation with a high court Judge about wringing Fenner's neck, when he was lying somewhere, in the middle of Epping forest, his vocal cords silenced for ever.   
  
"Is something wrong?" John asked gently, observing the rapid change of facial expression, from horror, to disgust, to fear.   
  
"I think it's just all beginning to get to me," Said Karen, feeling that irresistible urge to confess all to this man whose trust she'd betrayed.   
  
"I'm amazed you can keep on working with him, after everything that's happened."   
  
"Well, with Grayling and area management refusing to give me one ounce of back up, I didn't really have any choice. If I'd left this job, Fenner would have been behind this desk in the blink of an eye, and there's no way I'd give him the satisfaction. Besides, I've had a bit of a break from him this week. He didn't turn up for work on Monday, and he hasn't been seen since." John stared at her. "We've phoned, someone's called round at his house, but no show, and as Grayling pointed out to me yesterday, Fenner isn't exactly breaking the law by quitting his job without a moment's notice." John looked thoughtful.   
  
"Is there any possibility that he could be aware of the case you're forming against him?"   
  
"I don't think so. But then he has seen both Jo and George inside these gates." Then, the penny dropped. "You think he's done a moonlight flit."   
  
"Well, he does have everything to lose if he's ever found guilty. Ex-prison officers don't exactly get an easy time of it inside."   
  
"He wouldn't," Said Karen, "Fenner's as evil as they come, but he's not stupid."   
  
"Perhaps this time, he realises his number's up."   
  
"But we've tried everything to find him," Went on Karen, "I even got in touch with his ex-wife yesterday."   
  
"Fine," Said John, "I'll issue a bench warrant for his arrest. There is every possibility that he is attempting to evade the clawing hands of the justice system. If, when he's picked up, he's got a valid reason for absconding, then we'll let him go. If he hasn't, then I'll remand him in custody." Briefly thinking that she would be the one remanded in custody if and when Fenner was ever found, Karen simply said,   
  
"Okay." Then, reaching for her ever-present cigarettes, she said, "How much have you seen of the case?"   
  
"I haven't seen anything of it since George took over, but I saw most of what Jo had gathered together. Why?"   
  
"Do you really think I'm doing the right thing?" Karen asked seriously.   
  
"Yes, of course."   
  
"I know that everything Fenner has ever done as regards virtually any woman is wrong and that he deserves to be punished for it, I absolutely endorse that. Shell Dockley, Rachel Hicks, Helen Stewart, they all deserve for Fenner to pay for what he's done to them. Maybe I'm just not sure that I do." Realising that she'd definitely said too much, she waited for his response.   
  
"Having read the transcript of your conversation with Jo, I know that you are without doubt doing the right thing. What Fenner did to you was thoroughly, reprehensibly wrong. I know why you are questioning the validity of your particular incident, and part of you probably always will. But the facts speak for themselves. You said no, and at least morally speaking, that's all there is to it." Karen stared at him. How could this man, this wonderful, trusting, supportive man, have so much faith in her. Brief tears had risen to her eyes at his unequivocal belief in her and she rapidly attempted to blink them away.   
  
"I'm sorry," She said, feeling a complete fool. "It's just sometimes nice to know that someone believes in me." He put out a hand, and took one of hers that was lying on top of the desk, running his thumb over the knuckles.   
  
"You will get through this," He said gently. "George, Jo and I, will be there to help you every step of the way." Karen turned her hand over, so that she was momentarily holding his.   
  
"Thank you," She said, hoping he would still mean it, when that inevitable day of the finding of Fenner's body eventually arrived, because arrive it would, like the Spanish train in the Chris De Burgh song, which had always carried the souls of the dead.   
  
"Would you like to see my wing?" Karen asked, desperate to find an alternative topic of conversation. John smiled.   
  
"Yes, I would. I can satisfy a point of curiosity I've had since the days when I was a practicing barrister." Karen reached for the phone, and rang down to the officer's room.   
  
"G wing," Answered Sylvia abruptly, not amused to be disturbed in the middle of her tea break.   
  
"Sylvia, where is Alison McKenzy?"   
  
"She's still down the block. I was just on my way to bring her back. Her week's up today."   
  
"Well, do me a favour, leave her there for a bit longer." Putting the phone down a moment later, she said, "I can do without another incident like last week." At John's raised eyebrow, she said, "didn't George tell you?"   
  
"Didn't George tell me what?"   
  
"That Alison McKenzy wasn't very pleased to see her and came within inches of attacking her."   
  
"You took George in to the vicinity of Alison McKenzy? A witness whom she attempted to brow beat in court?" He said, nailing Karen with the sort of stare that made her think of Yvonne.   
  
"No," She said patiently. "Not intentionally. I gave Fenner a direct order to keep McKenzy well out of harm's way, which he chose to disobey. George wasn't harmed in any way, I promise you. I would never have knowingly put her in any danger whatsoever."   
  
"Good," Replied John, though he didn't look entirely convince, and Karen was forcefully introduced to the intense protectiveness he clearly still felt for his ex-wife.   
  
As they drew closer to the wing, they could hear the random conglomerate of sounds that denoted a section of one of her Majesty's female prisons. The rattle of keys, the slamming of metal doors, the combined voices of a lot of women crammed in to a small space. When Karen let them through the last gate on to the wing, John was greeted to the sight of the association area. Looking up at the roof, he knew that George would have felt incredibly claustrophobic in here, as if everyone were looking down on her, as if everything she did was on display for all to see. As some of the women caught sight of John, a cheer rose up.   
  
"I should have you on a tight leash in here," Said Karen, grinning broadly. At John's raised eyebrow, she said, "Fifty sex starved women, you never know your luck." He laughed, and said,   
  
"My reputation clearly precedes me."   
  
"Only slightly," Replied Karen. she found herself thinking that John possibly needed more looking after in this place than George had. Seeing that their wing Governor wasn't about to introduce the very good-looking stranger, the women returned to whatever they were doing, but one of them detached herself from the group around the Pool table and walked towards them. It was Denny. Walking straight up to John, she said,   
  
"Sir, weren't you the Judge who sent Snowball down?" Not entirely sure of the reaction he would get, he said,   
  
"Yes, I was." Denny held out a hand.   
  
"Only, I recognised you from the picture they put in the paper after the trial. You're the only judge that's ever been worth shaking by the hand. You got justice for my Shaz, innit." For once, he was totally speechless. Holding out his own hand, he shook Denny's firmly.   
  
"Was Sharon Wiley your?..." He didn't seem to know what word to attach to their possible relationship.   
  
"Yeah," Replied Denny, "She was my bird, the most precious thing I ever had." Seeing that Di was beckoning to her, Karen said,   
  
"Can I leave you with Denny for a moment? I won't be long." Following her gaze, John said,   
  
"Of course." Keeping one eye firmly on John, who looked to be quite happy talking to Denny, Karen walked over to Di.   
  
"Have you heard any more about Jim?" Di asked.   
  
"No, not yet," Replied Karen, "It seems he's done a bunk." As Karen walked away, Di gestured to John and said,   
  
"It seems our Miss Betts is going up in the world." Sylvia looked scornful.   
  
"You might be right, Di," She said, "First Ritchie Atkins, and now a high court Judge. She'll have to start making her mind up which side of the fence she's on."   
  
"What did Shaz look like?" Asked John, feeling more humble than he'd ever done in his life at the appreciation from this girl in front of him.   
  
"Didn't you never see a picture of her?" Asked Denny.   
  
"No. It's funny, but I conducted the trial of her killer, and yet never knew anything about her."   
  
"One of the Costa Cons drew a picture of her for me. I'll go and get it." Denny was back in an instant, holding out the vibrant drawing, the purples and greens clearly portraying the dead girl's personality. John took it, and looked at the bright, mischievous face topped by short spiky hair. He thought that the age of Impressionism had moved in an interesting direction with this drawing.   
  
"The mad colours are because she was mad," Put in Denny. "She always made me laugh, and you don't get a lot of laughs in here." When Karen returned, Denny left them and John said,   
  
"That's the first time I've ever been congratulated by someone who actually mattered, for sending someone down." A sad smile crossed Karen's face as she watched Denny walk back to the dorm.   
  
"Shaz Wiley was probably the happiest inmate I've ever seen. Even though she was serving three life sentences at the age of nineteen, most of the time she didn't let it get to her. I remember once when all my officers went on strike, and the inmates pretty much had to look after themselves, someone produced a guitar and she started singing Scarborough Fayre. She had the most innocently sweet voice I've ever heard. Denny was virtually catatonic for about a month after the fire." John looked around him, at the various little groups of women, most of them looking far too at home than was surely natural. Observing his survey of the way the women clearly had particular people with whom they spent their time, Karen said, "the majority of them try to make the best of it. They know they're here for a certain amount of time, but they just get on with it."   
  
"Who are the Costa Cons?" He asked, "Denny said that it was one of them who drew the picture for her." Karen grinned and gestured to where Bev and Phil were sitting, smoking as usual.   
  
"It was one of those two who offered George a gin and tonic," She said with a broad smile. "Not in my hearing of course, or I would have had to spin their cell."   
  
"Yes, that's about the only thing George would tell me about her time here, that she'd been offered a gin and tonic, and that she'd met a prostitute whose son goes to public school."   
  
"You should have seen the look on her face," Said Karen, leading John over to where the Julies were wiping down the servery.   
  
"Wow, is he for us, Miss?" Asked Julie Saunders looking up with great interest. Karen laughed.   
  
"No, I'm afraid not, Julie. This is Mr. Justice deed." And turning to John, she said, "This is Julie Saunders, whose son resides at Marlborough College, and this is Julie Johnston," She said, as Julie J joined them.   
  
"Oh, I had a judge once," Said Julie J. "Tall, brown hair, wore horrible gray suits and had enormous eyebrows. All us girls used to call him Legover." John's face split in to the wickedest grin Karen had ever seen on a member of the legal profession. His posture stiffened, and he screwed his face up in to a mockery of the stiff upper lip countenance that Legover Everard always presented.   
  
"You don't mean Legover Everard?" He said, his voice taking on an extremely accurate imitation of Mr. Justice Everard's voice.   
  
"Yeah," Said the Julies in unison, "That's him. Why, do you know him?"   
  
"Oh, yes," Said John, the glint of triumph evident in his face. "Everyone I know talks about him as Legover, it's a standing joke."   
  
"Well, he'd remember us as the two Trudies," Said Julie S. "He was quite a regular at one time, wasn't he, Ju."   
  
"Oh, yeah," Replied Julie J, "Every Thursday, eight o'clock on the dot. He used to say his wife wasn't attractive enough to get him going, but then they all say that."   
  
"Oh, believe me," Said John, "He was telling you the truth when he said that."   
  
"Okay, Julies," Put in Karen, thinking this really had gone far enough. But as she and John walked towards the gate leading out of the wing, he kept breaking in to spontaneous little outbursts of laughter. When they emerged from G wing, Karen said,   
  
"I'll assume that you'll use everything you've learnt today to your maximum enjoyment?"   
  
"You're absolutely right," Said John, "This has the potential to be the best laugh I've had in a long time, and it will without doubt give me access to the cases I take a liking to."   
  
"Trust the Julies to have known a judge," Said Karen. Then John became serious again.   
  
"They really are like a family in here, aren't they."   
  
"Yes," Replied Karen, "As Tina Purvis pointed out in front of George, for some of them, in here's all the family they've got."   
  
"And Denny, what's she in for?"   
  
"For setting fire to her last childrens' home, because they were going to move her away from the first and only place she'd ever felt secure."   
  
"Having seen something of what I condemn the guilty to," Said John, "Will almost certainly make a difference to my future sentencing."   
  
"I thought it might. George said that it made her feel that what she did on a day to day basis was pretty worthless. I think you'll find her doing far more criminal work than she has done up to now." Whilst they were walking down a stretch of long, narrow corridor that was devoid of any other human beings, John stopped.   
  
"If I'm on the bench when Fenner's case eventually comes to court, and I will make sure I am, he'll be going down for the longest stretch I can give him. From what I've read on this case, his freedom is what he values the most, the freedom to take advantage of anyone he takes a fancy to. So, in his case, prison ought to be the perfect punishment."   
  
"What makes you so certain it'll get to court?" Asked Karen, being hit anew by the realisation that none of this would ever happen now.   
  
"Because if it doesn't, the Attorney General will be explaining the reason why." There was so much vehemence in John's tone, that Karen inwardly flinched at the thought of his anger one day being turned on her. As she watched him drive away, she found herself mentally locking away the few brief occasions she'd spent in his company, as if to preserve them from the harsh reality that must, one day fall on her. 


	106. Part one Hundred And Six

Part One Hundred and Six  
  
Cassie and Roisin were lazing together on the comfortable settee, cuddled up with the children after a normal Thursday evening after work. They had eaten their fill and they all had a mellow contented feeling when they all watched children's television together. The inevitable grotesque cartoon characters and loud voices washed over them all in a comforting cocoon to take the edge off the day. This was part of the fabric of their children centred universe and their brief holidays from it, of sampling the decadent lifestyle at Yvonne's house and everything that went with it was lived to the full. As this time was so limited, it was all the more precious to them.   
  
Tom and Jerry was the ultimate electronic corny cosy Americanised TV junk fare as inevitable and universal as McDonalds takeaways, an inescapable part of modern childhood. Michael and Niamh, of course loved it and the more recent creations and were glued to their seats in fascination. They were all watching Jerry the mouse as he escaped from his cosy mousehole and scooted at great speed across the enormous front room. The next second, Tom, the cat, picked up his six shooter and with glee sent a series of shots after Jerry which whistled past him but miraculously failed to hit him.  
  
Cassie shuddered as the symbolism of the gun made her go cold inside. She had watched this cartoon when she was little which, ordinarily, something like this ought to have made her feel more comfortable. Since Karen had come round to see them to tell them of Fenner's death, their world had been knocked askew. Yet relatively speaking, they were at the edge of a growing whirlpool which they sensed spinning around to the side of them.   
  
Presently, the six o'clock news broke in with its staccato music to command the nation's attention and its handed down agenda of relative importance of what was supposedly going on all around them.  
  
"Jordan signs up for her first film role," came the dramatic glamorous news headlines as announced in split second images of the pouting lips and big breasts of everyone's front page sense of importance as she stepped out from the expensive studio offices, smiling for the flashing news cameras. An appropriately grim note was struck when the Chancellor of the Exchequer warned of the danger of above inflation pay rises. The grey suited man's mouth opened and closed voicelessly in sonorous tones to Cassie and Roisin while Niamh and Michael wriggled in boredom wondering why mum and Cassie forced this grown up torture on them that made no sense to them. The last news item was David Blunkett, the Home Secretary being pleased to announce that the three months crime figures showing a significant average seven percent downturn in violent crime figures of all kinds. "This country is at last becoming a more law abiding Christian society where those who are tempted to break the law think twice about it for fear of being caught."  
  
"Let's switch channels, eh, kids," Cassie said, clicking the button on the remote control. "It's boring, isn't it?"  
  
The children were surprised and pleased by the unexpected reprieve. Roisin's basically serious outlook on life was the main mover in watching serious programmes but tonight she made not the slightest objection. Cassie's basically carefree, child like nature was naturally more in tune with the children but it had been modified by her deep love for Roisin which educated her to ideas which her basically lazy nature would not have picked up on unless she were forced too. Cassie had become a 'born for the first time ' responsible grown up, well at least some of the time.  
  
What the children could not see was the TV news item which never appeared that night but which Cassie and Roisin had dreaded would break, if not that night then it would the night after. There was a vivid wide screen news footage transmitted but only inside both Cassie's and Roisin's troubled minds. It was only a matter of time before it would happen. Their awareness of the enormity of what a small handful of them knew but the world didn't, scared them.   
  
"Police are searching for the killer of the Prison Officer, James Fenner who mysteriously disappeared last Sunday after going out for a drink with his friends. The body was recently discovered and various lines of investigations are being followed. The likeliest theory is that the murderer is someone who is connected with a present or past prisoner at Larkhall Prison where he had worked for many years…….."  
  
"Right, kids," Cassie suddenly broke in, "Have you any homework to do tonight?"  
  
Michael and Niamh exchanged glances. As it happened, there was no homework set tonight and they had anticipated a lazy evening in with nothing much to do as mum and Cassie were never known to take them anywhere mid week. Both shook their heads.  
  
"Then how do you fancy seeing Auntie Yvonne and Auntie Lauren tonight?"  
  
Both of them yelled their noisy approval. To them, it was like going on a foreign holiday on their doorstep with grownups who were kind and good fun. They didn't talk down to them like some grownups did but told the funniest jokes around. The house was a place of wonder, chock full of all the latest gadgets and rooms to play in and, in the summer, the sun seemed hotter by their swimming pool than in their own back garden. The huge grounds provided a marvellous area to explore and their dog, Trigger, was so cute. They had once tried begging and pleading with mum and Cassie to take Trigger home with them, having planned in detail where he could sleep, but they had firmly declined.   
  
Roisin raised her eyebrows at Cassie's suggestion but made no objection. They had not wished to make contact with Yvonne and Lauren in the first few days, having witnessed the spectacular verbal fireworks between them when Ritchie had died and had waited for them to phone. Cassie had thought that someone had to make the first move so it might as well be them as anyone.   
  
"You don't normally take us out on a school night," Niamh piped up, her enquiring mind occasionally asking awkward questions.  
  
"This is a little treat, children, because you're so good. Cassie and I suddenly thought of this tonight. Mind you, we have to make sure that we're back for bedtime so get ready, now," Roisin intervened, her concerned mum approach sounding authentic.   
  
"I'll phone her up and let them know we're coming, Roash," Cassie offered casually though she was by no means certain just what sort of frame of mind they would be in.  
  
Yvonne and Lauren had started to make an effort to pretend to each other that everything had blown over. Neither of them wanted to even deal with the possibility that Fenner's murder would come to light. They had done their best to cover up the crime and now it was time to pretend to move on. By tacit conspiracy, they somehow managed it that they never saw the news on the television and police dramas where the perfect crime was committed but some small mistake led to the criminal being caught in the last five minutes was scrupulously avoided. Keep it light, both of them thought and even the most rubbish game show was not all bad.  
  
The atmosphere between them reverted to something like the days when Lauren came to visit Yvonne in prison and she had to be the sensible grown up who carried all the responsibility and was making an extra special effort to cheer Yvonne up. There was a resemblance in another way as both of them had the instinct to lie low within the house for a while and not to flaunt their presence to the outside world. Instead of the carefree thought of grabbing a car and driving out and about the neighbourhood, an invisible set of prison bars seemed to close down on both of them. The autumn nights were drawing in now and the dazzling hot summer of lying out by the pool was a thing of the past. There was an underlying feeling of claustrophobia and tension underneath the surface.   
  
Yvonne had picked up the call earlier from Cassie asking if it was all right to come over and, don't worry, that they had heard from Karen what had happened.   
  
"Sure," Yvonne exhaled down the phone an audible breath of relief. "Don't worry, it's perfectly safe to come over. There isn't open warfare here like you might fear. Lauren hasn't grown two bleeding heads overnight. It sounds like a load of bollocks, but she's been acting more grown up in recent days."  
  
"We know, Yvonne. Do you mind if we bring the kids over?" Cassie could detect the universal defensive tone of every mother standing up for their own.  
  
Yvonne's spirits lifted in an instant. What she could do with right now was a bit of innocent company from Cassie and Roisin's kids as a complete change from the emotional fallout from Fenner's killing.   
  
"We would love to see them. It would make us feel bleeding normal again," Yvonne's soft tones expressed all her yearning for that indefinable feeling of safety and normality that they had lost that night.  
  
Trigger had started barking and wagging his tail in excitement just before the sounds of an approaching car could be heard. He nosed the front door open when Lauren had barely turned the handle and the very welcome sight of a familiar car as it drew up on the drive made the presence of close friends all the more welcome. They both blinked at the unfamiliar fresh air and the last of the sunlight.  
  
"Auntie Lauren," Niamh's childish voice piped up to be greeted by a very tender smile from the younger woman. No matter what, she was still the children's favourite. She needed to cling onto that thought. Trigger, of course, gently inserted himself between the two human beings, not to be done out of being made a fuss over and both of them patted and stroked him. He was restored to what he felt was his rightful place in the pack.   
  
Yvonne squinted at the unexpected sunlight and cool fresh air on her skin. Her eyes darted round to take in the distant views of any sights and sounds of the Old Bill heading in their direction.   
  
"Hey, what's wrong, Yvonne?" Cassie enquired, picking up on the other woman's nervousness and background fear. She seemed not entirely well to her and, underneath her make up, pale and washed out."  
  
"It's nothing, Cassie. Just a bleeding cold. Even Atkins can get colds from time to time, you know," She replied a little brusquely and fooling no one.  
  
"If I were your GP, I'd say you are suffering from an overdose of nobbing policemen, or the fear of them," Cassie replied in her blunt way. "You can't stay indoors all of the bloody time."  
  
Yvonne smiled wholeheartedly and hugged the smaller woman. She needed that sort of tough love from a friend who really cared for her. She clung on to her for what seemed a long time.  
  
"You're right, Cassie. Do you want to go out to a pub where they allow children."  
  
"Perhaps another time, Yvonne. We'll go in later as it's getting chilly outside. But mind you, we'll be checking up on you two from time to time," Roisin broke in, her motherly tone bossing her around as much as any of her children's friends. That ability acquired over the years was inwardly welcomed by Yvonne and was the kick up the backside that she wanted to give her a sense of direction.  
  
"You're the boss, Roisin," Came the smiling joking, yet respectful response.   
  
"We really came here to find out how you are both going on and to tell you that we are here for you whatever happens." Roisin's words, spoken with all her gentle yet intense warmth brought a tear or two to Yvonne's eyes.  
  
Lauren found a couple of huge mugs and sloshed out a generous measure of the children's favourite Diet Coke and chattered away to them. She was bright faced and lively, cracking new jokes to the children, for the first time since she had last seen them. She could almost forget the darkness of so many weeks of her life that had obsessed her and held her in a vice like grip. Surely it wasn't too late to break free from that?   
  
Yvonne smiled affectionately at Lauren, seeing in her excited manner the child that she had known and loved. She had always felt close to her from when she was a baby and seen her big guileless eyes somehow filled with wisdom look back at her. She had so many dreams for her future, Lauren and her 'little angel.' It had held at bay some of the ugliness of her life in 'standing by her man' in the way he was so high and tough when he had murdered someone and he had called out to her at night to his 'Eevie' when his sweating nightmares called out to her to comfort him. No one ever called her 'Eevie' any more and perhaps it was as well. That name had died along with Charlie.  
  
"Hey kids," Yvonne talked to the children. "Will you let Auntie Yvonne tell you some new jokes? I do them better than Lauren." She smiled at Lauren who grinned back. Both had that buoyant lift of the spirits which the company of close and trusted friends had brought with them. This was like the old times without having to be in prison. Two tiny hands grabbed her own and, laughingly, she was pulled after them as they clattered their way to another room. She sat them both on her lap and their childish shining innocent eyes made her desire so much to be worthy of them. She knew that she could entertain them as, once you developed the knack, it was as easy as falling off a log.  
  
  
  
"So you two think I'm some kind of mad woman and that I messed up?" Lauren asked Cassie with a hint of aggression in her voice.  
  
Cassie did not react with anger as she could see the self torture that lay below the surface.  
  
"I don't think that a prick like Fenner is worth killing if anything bad will happen to you. I'd miss going out clubbing with you, anyway," Cassie finished lightly.  
  
"You are both going to be all right with your kids and everything. You're not going to end up doing anything self destructive like the Atkins family does. We're not that big and tough," Lauren's wierdly spiralling mood had dragged her mood downwards into that sense of blackness and despair.   
  
"It wasn't always that way, Lauren. You forget that both of us have done time. I used to have a five figure salary, company car, penthouse flat. I had it all, once. The only thing was that I got a combined credit card and coke habit. Coke was a clean drug or so I thought and I got greedy for more money than I was earning. I hit on this clever idea of scamming the company and pressured Roash to cover up the accounts for me. Between the two of us, I felt we couldn't lose. I got as much of a high out of the scam as doing coke and lived in an unreal world even though I thought I knew what I was doing. Somehow living dangerously and spending recklessly made sense to me and I felt that I was superwoman and I could do no wrong. If you think in that coked up way, you're heading for a fall. That's when some interfering, nobbing jobsworth did a spot check on the company accounts and we were outed. The next thing I knew, there was a knock on the door after work when I was going to get glammed up to see Roash, only it was the police. I was wearing my best power dressing blue suit when we were taken through the gates of Larkhall for the first time."  
  
"And if you think that I'm a respectable Irishwoman, Lauren, then just remember the Roisin Connor who sold everything she had to buy uppers and downers, anything to kill the pain of not having the children around," Roisin cut in, gesturing to Niamh and Michael who, to Lauren, looked as if they had always been around both of them and forever would be. Thanks to Charlie, the flavour of the shifting of heroin and cocaine in bulk through the veins and arteries of his criminal network had tainted the family as much as it had given them their luxurious lifestyle. What it meant in terms of the brutal physical pain and degradation had never confronted her, face to face.  
  
"I lied over and over again to Cassie as I was ashamed of myself but I couldn't face life without that crutch and, in the end, after swearing never to use needles, I did. I couldn't even blame Al McKenzie for it. It was written all over my face when I asked her for heroin the first time in the women's toilets at Larkhall." Roisin's pained voice recalled her own darkness of mood for the first time since she had cleaned up. "Somehow, when I looked down at her in the witness box when we were all sat together in the visitor's gallery that day, she wasn't the same woman and neither was I."  
  
Lauren's eyes were wide open in shock while Cassie and Roisin spoke so passionately from the shared pain of their past. No matter how tough and streetwise she pretended to be, she had always been a visitor to Larkhall. She had gone through the petty bureaucracy of queuing up and waiting to visit her mother and verbally sparring with the likes of Bodybag and Fenner, the very dead Fenner, in the visitor's room She had been the outside contact when Josh had met her in the Larkhall Arms and done her drug deals. She had even smuggled Julie J's kids into Larkhall so that they could talk to their mother and had seen them dragged away by that cow Bodybag. She had felt that she had almost been at Larkhall herself, except that when visitor's time had ended, she would be allowed to drive away back to this house. Now, she knew that the moment that she had fired that fatal shot and had shoveled the earth on Fenner's grave, she had lost that sense of invulnerability even though she had not known it at the time. She just had to trust to Atkins luck from now on.  
  
"It's been good of you to come out and see us. You don't know how much you've helped us," Yvonne said, her tenderness unashamedly on the surface as the children.  
  
"You would have done the same to us if we were in trouble, Yvonne. You really don't know how even getting a bollocking from you in Larkhall made us grow up. We'd never met anyone like you till we got to Larkhall. That dump at least did something good for us," Cassie replied, the look in her eyes showing total love and respect.  
  
A slightly drunken Lauren came out and threw her arms round first Cassie and then Roisin and kissed them each. The way that they had told her their moments of most pain and degradation at Larkhall flooded her full of emotion and gratitude. She knew how busy they were and many times over, she wished them a safe journey.  
  
"We'll be thinking of you, won't we," Cassie's light, flippant yet very reassuring voice and reassuring smile was left behind in their spirits long after their car had turned its way down the drive and off down the road to the sort of peace and harmony that both Yvonne and Lauren now realised was so taken for granted but all the more precious. 


	107. Part One Hundred And Seven

A/N: All lyrics contained within belong to Martina McBride, and I have to thank Henny for introducing me to her.   
  
Part One Hundred And Seven   
  
As Jo drove towards George's house on the Friday evening, she couldn't help but feel some concern. It wasn't like George to leave one of her case files behind on the defense bench, which is why she was now returning it. But this wasn't all, George's old swagger seemed to have gone. She had without doubt defended her case to a satisfactory level, but the old anger, the old spite that usually seemed to fuel every one of George's arguments just hadn't been there. She'd looked thinner, paler, as if she was outwardly as well as inwardly fading. Nothing had been able to raise a smile, and those usually expressive eyes had remained dull. If Jo was honest, George had been going slowly down hill ever since the break up with Neil. But the change in George seemed to have increased. Something had happened recently to suddenly make George have as little contact with Jo as possible. Prior to the Merriman/Atkins trial, this would have been nothing new, but Jo had thought that with the advent of Karen Betts' case, they were beginning to forge some kind of understanding. All Jo could think was that she had said or done something to put George back to square one where their tentative attempt at friendship was concerned. She turned in to George's driveway and took a brief moment to marshall her thoughts. In the old days, she wouldn't have cared one way or the other about even attempting to get on with George, but the goal posts had moved. It had been Jo's instinctive reaction to drop all antagonism towards her when she'd been presented with George's undoing from the black-eye. It hadn't taken rocket science for Jo to realise that George had been utterly thrown by what Neil had done to her. Neil's resorting to violence had shocked George enough to allow herself to lose control in front of Jo, something that ordinarily would have been against anything George stood for. But then they'd begun working on Karen Betts' case, with George digging up an enormous amount of dirt on Fenner. Jo knew that she'd become too emotionally involved with that case, and George had been there to pick up the pieces when Jo had failed to get Helen Stewart on board. So what had happened, Jo couldn't begin to imagine.   
  
As she walked up the steps, the case file under her arm, she resolved to try and sort out whatever the problem was. She had a feeling of severe reluctance to go back to the way they'd been with each other before the Merriman/Atkins trial. She pressed the doorbell and waited. As George drew nearer the front door, Jo was greeted to the deep, confident sound of George singing. The upper class drawl was gone, the bite of sarcasm was gone. But maybe it was the words that were most significant.   
  
"Love's the only house big enough for all the pain in the world. Love's the only house big enough for all the pain." Was this what George really thought, or were they simply the words to whatever song she was listening too. When George opened the door, she looked surprised to see Jo. She schooled her face in to the most noncommittal expression possible, but Jo hadn't missed the brief grimace that had passed over the other woman's countenance.   
  
"You left this on the defence bench," Said Jo, holding up the file. George opened the door wider and gestured for Jo to come in.   
  
"Thank you," She said, taking the file. "I wondered where I'd left that." In the old days, had Jo done such a thing as to return a forgotten file, George would have asked her if she'd taken the opportunity to view its contents, especially considering the fact that they were on opposite sides of the case, but not any more. For a start, George knew that Jo wouldn't apply the same unprofessional tactics as she would, and second, George simply couldn't be bothered starting an argument. Moving towards the lounge, George said,   
  
"I'm getting drunk, and I'm likely to be particularly bad company, but you're welcome to join me if conversation wasn't your intended goal." Taking a close look at George's face and seeing the slight squint, the only thing to betray her lack of sobriety, Jo said,   
  
"You look like you're half there already." George laughed.   
  
"I may be on the small side," She said, "But I do have a very good resistance to alcohol." As they walked in to the lounge, Jo caught sight of the bottle of Martini and a half-full glass on the coffee table. Retrieving the bottle of scotch and another glass, George placed them near to her own choice of drink and poured Jo a generous measure with a very steady hand. There was some music playing softly on the stereo and George was clearly set for an evening of mellow moroseness. Picking up the CD cover that was on the coffee table next to the ashtray, Jo said,   
  
"Martina McBride, I've never heard of her. I wouldn't have taken you for someone who liked country rock."   
  
"There's an awful lot you don't know about me," Said George, the comment seeming to hold some inner significance.   
  
"So I'm finding out," Replied Jo, realising that some deep torment was going on inside George, that some indefinable weight was pressing on her spirit.   
  
George was unusually quiet as they sat, companionably smoking and allowing the words from the CD to wash over them. George kept refilling her own glass, but Jo made the one she'd started with last. She made no comment on the fact that George really could put it away. George was perfectly old enough to know how much alcohol she could handle. Jo found her thoughts drifting to that time, nearly eighteen months ago now, when she'd allowed her utterly flawless self-control to slip, and had got incredibly drunk with John after the teenaged boy who hadn't wanted a heart transplant had died. For one night, she had dropped her outer layer of dignity, and had allowed John to see her doing the one thing that scared her most. Jo had never hidden the fact that her father had been an alcoholic, but she did hide her awareness of her own tentative leaning in that direction. Jo wasn't, nor if she had anything to do with it, would she ever be an alcoholic, but if ever she was under any enormous stress, her instinct would occasionally be to get drunk. She could drink, in moderation as she was doing now, but if she became aware of her stress level exponentionally rising, she tried to avoid coming in to contact with alcohol, so as not to lead herself in to temptation.   
  
From across the room, George caught sight of the shadow that had crossed Jo's face.   
  
"What are you thinking?" She asked. Jo focused on George, drawn back to the present.   
  
"I was remembering the last time I drank as much as you're doing now. It was the night that led to that thoroughly humiliating confrontation with the Professional Conduct Committee. I never, ever drink that much, and on the one occasion I did, I have to get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time." Jo suddenly stopped, not quite knowing where all that had come from. George regarded her thoughtfully.   
  
"That's what really got to you, isn't it. It wasn't the fact that you were caught in the wrong bed, but that you were there because you got plastered."   
  
"Yes, and that John chose to focus on that in his evidence."   
  
"And I didn't let you forget it, did I," Said George, feeling an utter bitch for having done this.   
  
"No," Said Jo with a small smile. They lapsed again in to a comfortable silence. They both became aware of the words coming from the stereo.   
  
"The world's greatest lovers, have turned in to strangers."   
  
"That sounds like my marriage," Commented George dryly. Jo lifted an eyebrow.   
  
"What, the world's greatest lovers or turning in to strangers?" George flashed her a wry smile.   
  
"Both," She said, reaching for a cigarette. "That's one thing you'll never go short of with John," She added, thinking that she definitely was drinking far too much. Jo smiled, remembering how John had been the previous weekend.   
  
"Except that it's always far more intense when he's been up to his old tricks," Replied Jo, feeling the sheer surreal quality of having something in common with George.   
  
"Oh, yes," George said after a long drag, "He always uses the thing he knows best as a form of making up." George knew she was treading the path of the tightrope walker, but she was suddenly desperate to know if Jo was aware of John's having played away with her the week before. "Why," She asked, "Is that what he's been up too? I thought he'd begun to settle down." Jo laughed sardonically.   
  
"You know John as well as I do, George. He just can't resist the chase. I doubt he'll ever stay religiously with one woman for longer than five minutes, and especially not with me."   
  
"But he loves you," Put in George, "Why do you think he keeps coming back?"   
  
"Because ultimately I'm safe," Replied Jo, "He knows that I'm not about to disappear."   
  
"It sounds like he takes you for granted," Said George, thinking that John needed a good kick in the teeth to make him sort himself out.   
  
"Oh, yes," Said Jo dryly, "He's done that all the time I've known him."   
  
"Jo, don't underestimate what he feels for you," George found herself saying, "Even in the beginning, there was something different about you. I remember the day I found out about you and John..." then she stopped, not really sure if she should carry on.   
  
"Go on," prompted Jo, "You can satisfy a point of curiosity for me." Knowing that her senses had finally gone right out of the window, George continued.   
  
"Charlie was six and a half, and I'd just picked her up from school. We decided to come to court to see if John had finished for the day." George hesitated, but she could see that Jo had been wondering about the discovery of hers and John's affair for a long time. "He was kissing the life out of you on the front steps of the court. It shocked me because you looked so complete, so right together, as if you needed nothing from anyone else in the whole world. It would have looked incredibly erotic if it hadn't hurt so much. Sorry," She said, mentally clamping her tongue between her teeth, "Forget I said that. So, I put the car in to a U turn and roared away, attempting to explain to Charlie why we couldn't go and visit Daddy after all."   
  
"I'm sorry," Said Jo after a while, feeling that in spite of all the sparring they'd done over the years, this apology to George had been long in coming.   
  
"What on Earth for?" Asked George, thoroughly mystified.   
  
"I'd have thought that was obvious."   
  
"Jo, that was all a very long time ago," Said George gently. "I didn't tell you about it to make you feel guilty. John and I would never have lasted. There were too many things about me that he wasn't prepared to share a life with." Something in George's eyes darkened as she said this, and Jo had a new point of curiosity to focus on.   
  
"But it didn't need me to decide things for you," Replied Jo.   
  
"Maybe not," Conceded George, "But John's infidelity was only the catalyst. He wouldn't have gone looking if I hadn't pushed him away." Knowing that this time, she really had said too much, George abandoned this hazardous topic of conversation, getting up to get herself some more ice. As she rummaged in the freezer, Martina McBride's words again caught her attention.   
  
"You think I'm always makin', something out of nothin'.   
  
You're sayin' everything's okay.   
  
You've always got an answer, before I ask the question.   
  
Whatever you say."   
  
"That sounds like Neil," Said George, walking in to the lounge with the ice tray, dropping ice cubes in to both their glasses. As she replaced the ice in the freezer, she found herself joining the singer on the CD, something which didn't go unnoticed by Jo.   
  
"You say yes, you need me, and no you wouldn't leave me.   
  
And that should be enough to make me stay.   
  
Even though I want to, I don't hear I love you,   
  
in whatever you say."   
  
George's voice sounded so unexpectedly at home with the violins and guitars, that Jo smiled. She could never previously have imagined George's voice without its bite, without its clipped upper-class drawl, but the soft, deep tones with the slight vibration which spoke of at least some minimal training whilst she was at school, George's voice appeared to mould itself almost caressingly around the words. Jo was forced to realise that if she hadn't appeared this evening, George might have been able to let out some of her moroseness by singing. Jo was also hit with a tinge of pity for George, who had almost certainly never heard the words I love you at any time from Neil.   
  
"Have you heard from him?" She asked as George returned and sat down.   
  
"From Neil? Yes, he came to see me on Monday, just as Karen Betts was leaving."   
  
"He's persistent, if nothing else," observed Jo. George opened her mouth to reply that Neil had only really been there to find out how John knew about the Adam and Eve picture, but closed it again when she realised that this would mean explaining it to Jo.   
  
"He made a fairly pathetic effort at wanting to talk," She said, making it clear that it hadn't done Neil any good.   
  
"Will he be at Legover's party on Sunday?" Asked Jo.   
  
"Probably," Replied George, and then her eyes widened. "Oh, no," She groaned, and at Jo's raised eyebrows, she elaborated. "I had dinner with Daddy on Wednesday, and he managed to get out of me why I'd split up with Neil. Daddy will almost certainly be there, and I don't trust him not to use the opportunity to threaten Neil within an inch of his life, or at least his political life."   
  
"Perhaps that's what he needs," Put in Jo.   
  
"I don't care," Replied George emphatically. "I'd really rather everyone just forgot about it. Daddy, John and Neil in the same room for any length of time means trouble, believe me."   
  
They slipped in to another contemplative silence, both feeling relaxed in the other's company. George was irrevocably torn between enjoying having Jo there, and wishing she would go. Being in Jo's presence, was increasing George's feeling of guilt more every minute. When Jo had expressed an apology for breaking up her marriage, this had almost been too much for George. All that had been nearly seventeen years ago, and now wasn't the time for Jo to feel any kind of guilt. No, all the guilt lay with George herself, not Jo. George was drifting on a sea of depression and alcohol, utterly submerged in her thoughts. How could she have done what she'd done to Jo? This woman in front of her didn't deserve John's almost total disregard for female feelings, and she, George, had no business in assisting his betrayal. Jo watched her, seeing something inexplicably sad register in George's eyes. Jo was again presented with the question of what had taken residence in George's mind to make her look as she was doing now. It wasn't Neil, or very little of it was, Jo was certain. But something else, some other recent occurrence had clearly plunged George in to the dark, endless fathoms of depression. Jo watched, as George's eyes widened at the new song on the CD, and observed as first, pain flashed behind the other woman's eyes, and then as this was closely followed by the spilling over of parallel tear tracks which made their inexorable way down George's cheeks.   
  
"I wonder where your heart is   
  
'Cause it sure don't feel like it's here.   
  
Sometimes I think you wish   
  
That I would just disappear.   
  
Have I got it all wrong?   
  
Have you felt this way long?  
  
Are you already gone."   
  
Jo was forced to admit that these words did hold some significance with her. What was it she'd said to John on the previous Saturday when they'd been in bed together? That was it. She'd said that it was the not knowing that she couldn't stand, the uncertainty of whether or not he would finally leave her for some other woman. Had he? Was he? Would he? These were all questions that had been apparent at the time, and which were being resurrected by the singer's words. But why were they affecting George like this. Jo's gaze rested softly on the other woman, not entirely sure whether to intrude on her anguish or not.   
  
"Do you feel lonely   
  
When you're here by my side?   
  
Does the sound of freedom   
  
Echo in your mind.   
  
Do you wish you were by yourself?   
  
Or that I was someone else?   
  
Anyone else."   
  
It was at the words, "Does the sound of freedom echo in your mind", that Jo realised George must be thinking of what Jo had said earlier about John's possibly playing away. She couldn't leave George to suffer in silence, it just wasn't in her to do so. Jo had been sitting in the armchair that was at right angles to the fireplace, but she rose and moved over to where George was seated in her usual corner at the right-hand end of the sofa. Sitting down next to her, which appeared to go unnoticed, Jo gently laid a hand on George's left shoulder. Slightly startled, George swiveled her gaze which had previously been focused on nothing in the immediate vicinity, to rest on Jo.   
  
"I'm sorry," She said, unconsciously echoing Karen's words of Monday morning, "I was miles away."   
  
"Not somewhere nice by the look of you," Replied Jo softly. George briefly stared at Jo.   
  
"How odd," She said, "I said exactly the same thing to Karen Betts a few days ago." For the first time in years, Jo was totally at a loss as to how to proceed. How did she even begin to offer some sort of comfort to the woman who for years had given her nothing but scorn and derision? Jo very slowly, very gently, put her arms round George, giving her every opportunity to retreat, though this was not necessary. Jo was a little surprised to find her hug returned, because if there was one thing that rose from George like heat, it was a need to at all costs maintain her barriers. George was virtually silent as she cried, and it struck Jo that in this respect, George wasn't dissimilar to Karen Betts. Both George and Karen were two incredibly strong women, who, on the vast majority of occasions, strove to hide any and every weakness from any casual observer. Jo gently moved her hand over George's back, coming in to contact with an extremely prominent shoulder blade.   
  
"What's happened?" Jo asked quietly.   
  
"It's this song," Replied George, "The words made me think that that's how you must feel about John."   
  
"Yes, sometimes," Said Jo, "John might not usually wish I'm someone else, but he does and will always want his freedom."   
  
"But he shouldn't," Said George vehemently. "He's got to stop mindlessly fucking other women who mean absolutely nothing to him and realise which side his bread's buttered. I'm sorry," She said, suddenly realising that she'd slipped in to the type of vocabulary probably not either welcome with or expected of one of Her Majesty's councils. Jo smiled.   
  
"You've always had a way with words, George, and yes, he probably should decide what is really important to him, but I think we both know that he never will." Jo gently detached herself from George, and handed her the box of tissues on the coffee table.   
  
"You probably think me utterly weak and pathetic," Said George, as she dried her eyes.   
  
"No," Said Jo, "After the way I behaved on the night I was photographed in John's bed, I have absolutely nothing to reproach anyone for, especially when it involves alcohol." Jo knew that there was an awful lot more to George's outburst than she had hitherto imparted, but she was wise enough to see that George wasn't about to provide any further explanation and that her continued probing, would only give George a reason to try and rebuild her walls of defence. When Jo eventually left, she felt that in establishing some personal common ground, she and George were on their way to forming something of a friendship. She didn't spare any thought to the heart of what had got to George that evening. If George wanted her to know, then she would tell her, and if she didn't, then she wouldn't. Jo had more than enough skeletons of her own without feeling a necessity to discover anyone else's. She just hoped that George would come through whatever it was that appeared to have shaken her to the core. Jo had always known, mostly via the court room that George was pretty unstable, but whatever had upset her this evening, seemed to have rocked her right off course. 


	108. Part One Hundred And Eight

Part One Hundred And Eight   
  
The scene was set at Mr. Justice Everard's for the legal profession to collectively relax, bond with itself and to remind itself that, after all, it was a fraternity, albeit with women admitted to the club in line with the changing times. An astute observer at courts up and down the country might suspect that barristers and judges, beneath their theatrical and adversarial robes, were merely actors in their roles. This was confirmed at such a gathering like this where a spirit of bonhomie was artificially stimulated   
  
by discreet waiters holding drinks trays with glasses of red and white wine. All this togetherness need not stop the hidden rivalries, the groups engaged in idle gossip and the turned back to the temporary outsiders of the moment. John Deed, of course, was the one outsider who wasn't afraid to be one and had that force of personality where others came to talk to him.   
  
The setting was the large dining room in the very traditional hotel, where the Judges' digs was now situated, where the old fashioned narrow framed windows were framed by floor length yellow and green brocaded curtains. In one corner was a high narrow bookcase full of hardback books in faded colours in an assortment of titles. On a large side table, a buffet meal was laid out. Only the wide square shaped stone fireplace and the artificial coal fire spoke of anything like the modern age as a reluctant concession. Both the digs and its occupants spoke of a bygone age of gentility and stability, free from the garish neurotic style of this modern age.   
  
Sir Ian, Lawrence James and Lord Justice Everard and his wife made their stately way into the room and looked on in satisfaction at the setting.  
  
"It's at times like these, Ian, that the brethren should feel themselves as one," He boomed, feeling the satisfaction of the nicety of the event as well as a large preliminary whisky already coursing through his veins.  
  
"Am I one of the brethren even if I am on the sidelines?" his large and very formidable wife butted in, in her curiously mannish voice. "Or what am I? It seems to me that it needs a woman to take charge in that recent rape case that we dealt with the other day."  
  
Monty sweated visibly at that memory. The sordid details were something that turned his stomach throughout the trial and he struggled to find the words to describe it. That did not stop his wife's relentless pillow talk on the conduct of the trial that day and lecturing him in what he should do the next day. Alone of all the parties present, she showed a total lack of embarrassment. At some point in time, he resolved to discreetly unload his wife on some unsuspecting souls and he could get entangled in conversation with a separate group.  
  
"I'm using the word as a figure of speech," He replied crossly.  
  
"You think Deed is one of the brethren, Monty?" Sir Ian asked him.  
  
"In a renegade way, even Deed," He reluctantly conceded.  
  
Fortunately Neumann Mason-Allen, his wife, Brian Cantwell and a number of other members of the bar drifted in and the bare room started to fill up and the background buzz of conversation became more noticeable.  
  
"I must socialise with some of the other barristers and do my bit rather than stick in a corner of the room and monopolise you all evening," Everard's wife exclaimed loudly and she detached herself, moving off majestically under full sail to the opposite corner of the room where the barristers politely agreed with the increasingly wine soaked opinions that came off the top of her head. It did not do much for one's career to publicly snub the Presiding Judge's wife, or such a reasonable disagreement would be so interpreted.  
  
Brian Cantwell grinned at the scene in the corner and bumped into George as she entered the room.  
  
"Nice try, George, in the Atkins Pilkinton trial. By all accounts, you did your level best and went down fighting."   
  
George smiled with a flash of her immaculate white teeth and perfectly painted lips. She was wearing a colourful loose fitting dress that suggested the shape of her tiny exquisite figure rather than flaunted it.  
  
"I'm sorry for the way I behaved when I took over the case from you, Brian. I genuinely believed that I could win the case."  
  
"Why did you ever take the case on, George? Was it anything to do with Neil Houghton?"  
  
George shrugged her shoulders non-committally.  
  
"Let's just say that I'm a bad loser. You know that from appearing opposite me," George replied with a hint of flirtatiousness in her manner. Inwardly, she asked herself the same question and for the life of her, she didn't know. Her face had brightened as her memory dragged her to more distant times of the choicer exchanges when she had frequently wrong footed or rattled Brian Cantwell.   
  
"Are you on the waggon, George? I'll get a drink for you as I know your favourite poison." Brian asked more lightheartedly as he took two glasses of dry white wine from the waiter who passed by. Brian Cantwell's actions were not entirely altruistic as he was known to be a heavy drinker and George made him a helpful alibi to knock back another drink without making it obvious. His quick eyes had darted round the crowded room for the waiter and the drinks tray. It was becoming more and more difficult to get to the buffet table and to pick your way through the crowd for the nearest drink.  
  
"Thank you," George said graciously.  
  
Neil gradually made his way across the room, having button holed the Attorney General and was exchanging the latest political gossip as to who was in line for the next promotion and who was due to be dropped from the Cabinet. His eyes focussed in her direction and he veered off from the path he was treading and next moment, the two politicians were talking shop in a corner by the window, their stance totally excluding the casual wanderer at the party, looking for a fresh source of conversation.  
  
Sir Monty Everard's mood was not improved when Deed drifted nonchalantly through the door. He had been manfully acting the part of the genial host to fresh visitors but felt that he could conveniently overlook that Deed character.   
  
"Lover boy doesn't want to know, George," John's melodious voice broke in on George's thoughts. Brian Cantwell had made a bee line for the buffet table which was crowded out with the hungrier gannet population who were picking over the remains.  
  
"Last time we attended one of these soirees, he was giving me plenty of black looks before pretending concern as to how my therapy was going. He couldn't wait to come over in case I was up to no good with you."  
  
"And weren't you?" George laughed.  
  
"You can talk. You were flirting outrageously," John replied in his best mock innocent manner. His gentle riposte was all the more effective as it was perfectly true. In those days, while they both had their respective partners, more or less, they couldn't help but slightly misbehave with each other to ruffle the feathers of their partner of the moment. It was this provocative quality that drew them gently together in the first place.  
  
At that point, John exchanged a few pleasantries with Mr Neumann Mason-Allen while George looked away for a second. Her face fell and the present came back to haunt her. She had come closer to John since the last party only to be aware that his womanising was driving them further apart at the same time, even if she were his mistress, or whatever. It was the "or whatever" that said everything about the two of them. By force of circumstances, John had grown to take everything all too far, especially with Jo.  
  
In a split second, George's smile returned to its accustomed position as she said a few parting words to Mr Newman Mason-Allen before her worst source of bad conscience and tentative friend and work colleague came through the door, Jo Mills.  
  
………………………………………………………………………………………..  
  
George's heart was in her mouth as that symbol of a large part of her guilt was frozen in time for one split second. Then the miracle of parties, that which randomly determines how two or three people meet or fail to meet, came to George's rescue. Her view was blocked as Neumann Mason-Allen and Brian Cantwell converged on Jo to engage her in conversation and stop her dead in her tracks. Immediately after, the crowds parted to allow the portly shape of Joe Channing to bustle over in John and George's direction after pointedly ignoring an ingratiating Neil Houghton.  
  
"George, I hope you don't mind if I talk to John on his own. I'll be back to join you later if you don't mind an old fogey like me."  
  
"Anything for Daddy so long as…"   
  
"…You don't carry out your threat you have made on more than one occasion to horsewhip me." John joked anticipating George's one reservation.  
  
"If I reach for my whip, John, it won't be aimed at you," Joe rumbled, with an unexpected cautious smile in John's direction.  
  
John raised his eyebrows in surprise, having steeled himself for the sort of confrontation that had become habitual. As he sensed the entire absence of this, he felt disorientated.  
  
He went off in a corner with Joe while George flitted about, being the life and soul of the party, as only she knew how.   
  
"I heard from George that that bounder Neil Houghton actually struck my daughter. Did you know anything about this? If you did, and you seem to know most things," and here, Joe gave him a knowing look, "then I would have thought that I would have been the first person that you would have told, at least for 'old time's sake.'"  
  
John blinked at the intonation Joe spun on that last phrase which was half ironic, half meant. A host of old memories that he thought were sealed up and buried rushed to the surface of the early days of his marriage to George. As his own father had cut himself off emotionally from him after his mother's suicide when he was only ten, a part of him reached out to Joe as the archetypal older generation reactionary that he made his life purpose in confronting in duelling verbal debate. Many wine soaked evenings came back to his memory when he'd locked horns in debate with Joe in an atmosphere laden with Joe's cigar smoke. At that moment, he realised that, though times had driven them apart, Joe was still as much a part of his marriage as George was, however problematic.  
  
"I felt that it wasn't my place to tell the story to you, Joe. It would have seemed unsporting," He said slowly, feeling for words.  
  
"You really thought that it would have been bad form, John? Nonsense. You could have told me in confidence but I understand why you did not."  
  
For the first time in their lives, Joe and John actually agreed upon something. It took both of them by surprise and Joe's smile became more open and almost fatherly.   
  
As John made his way back to George, he couldn't help bumping into Neil.  
  
"I've just had a very interesting experience," He said curtly. "I've had a tour round one of Her Majesty's Prisons."  
  
"No doubt you have been up to your rabble rousing tricks there as much as anywhere, bleating on about justice. A pity as there is no honour among thieves, especially the convicted and the guilty," Neil said with a nasty tone in his voice.  
  
"It was Larkhall I went too, you know, the prison that the Atkins/Pilkinton trial was about. It seems that some of the criminals in society are on the outside. You meet such an interesting cross section of society in prison. Even Lord Archer went to prison. With your track record, who knows?" John fired back with a fixed smile, with a low menacing voice and glittering eyes.  
  
Neil slunk away to find other company while Joe just behind him, who had not said a word, kept a sharp eye on Neil.  
  
Jo Mills made her way over to John and they were making light conversation when George made her very hesitant way back, eyes flitting about not focussing on anyone except finally Daddy. She carried a half full glass of white wine.  
  
"I hear that when you went to Larkhall, that you were attacked by one of the inmates, Alison McKenzie. Why didn't you tell me about it?" John demanded sternly.   
  
While Jo put two and two together from her memories of the trial, a part of George was glad that the treacherous undercurrent of the party conversation wasn't about to pull her right under. This bone of contention between her and John at least diverted attention from more treacherous matters.  
  
"Karen wasn't to blame for McKenzy attacking me, John," George reasoned forcefully. "I heard from Karen later on that Fenner disobeyed a direct order from her to keep her away from me and I was present as she tore him off a strip. Karen saved my life in bodily dragging me away from the situation."  
  
"I was concerned for your safety, George. I had entrusted you safely to Karen's care and I was angry as I had supposed that she would be fully capable of looking after you," John replied with rather bad grace.  
  
"Well, I hope you weren't totally horrible to her, John. Even you don't get things right all the time," George retorted with a hint of her habitual combativeness, an attitude which she found so easy to adopt.  
  
"All right, all right, George," John raised his hands defensively. "You aren't going to subject me to your favourite prosecuting barrister's ploys designed to get your own way, whether right or wrong."  
  
"George was actually sticking up for someone else, John," Jo interposed gently, seeing the fireworks start to spark again between the pair of them.  
  
At this unexpected assistance, George smiled her dazzling immaculately made up smile and looked down into her handbag to reach for a cigarette. She fiddled about inside it for some time with a touch of irritation and reached for a cigarette which her fumbling fingers coaxed her lighter to align the flame with the cigarette end. She was muttering under her breath and no one dared say anything lest they draw her wrath on to them. She had that reputation. Eventually, she inhaled deeply and looked into the distance as she blew smoke from the depths of her lungs.  
  
"Well, with what I hear of you helping Jo with the civil case against that odious man, Fenner, both of you seem to be working together as a team. I would not have predicted anything like that happening the last time we were at Everard's party. Let's hope you both are successful and that Fenner has his just deserts behind bars instead of locking up others behind bars," John said heartily, trying to smooth oil over troubled waters.  
  
How can you be so crass, John, George thought furiously while she looked every way but in his direction. There can be no real friendship, much less than teamwork or still less, real love if you go behind your lover's back and betray her with your ex-wife. She blew cigarette smoke furiously while, from long training, she kept a perfect mask on her real feelings.  
  
You could win an Oscar, George, Jo thought. There's something troubling you if you reveal yourself so stripped to your raw emotions in front of me in private, yet in this social gathering, you keep up such a brilliant act so that nobody sees the real you. Does John see that or is he pretending not to notice?   
  
In the meantime, Joe had pulled Neil aside to a private room and jabbed in the direction of the second button on his jacket.  
  
"If I were twenty years younger, Neil, I would horsewhip you for striking my daughter the way you did and don't deny it. ……"  
  
"It was a mistake, a complete mistake, Joe. I have tried to make up with her and apologise…"  
  
"……..but I am not. Nevertheless I have the political power to ruin your career. All it takes is a word in the right ear and it is back to the back benches for you. You will have to say goodbye to the luxuries in your life and to people fawning over you. They will go to the next rising star while you surrender your Ministerial limousine and have to buy a guide map to the London underground and share some dingy locker in the house of Commons."  
  
Neil turned white at the prospect and started to stammer incoherently his profuse apologies.  
  
"You are totally spineless, Haughton. You keep away from my daughter and anyone remotely connected with her or the consequences for you will be unspeakable."  
  
"What do you mean by that, Joe?" Neil's voice rose up the scale, thoroughly panic stricken.  
  
"I would suggest that you should work that out for yourself," Joe retorted enigmatically as he himself was not sure of exactly how far he had set the boundaries. "With your acumen as a Government Minister - for the present - you should be able to apply yourself to working out the answer. Goodbye," Joe finally exploded and turned round and made his way back to George, the feelings of expended anger making him feel very happy with himself. The rumbling volcano of anger had finally burst through the crust and had scattered molten lava in all directions and released his pent up emotions. All through his life, he needed to do that from time to time.  
  
Like a galleon which had gone into battle all guns blazing and was replete with the spoils of victory, he made his way proudly in a victory march back to George.  
  
By this time, the party was at its height. The conversation was loud and hearty as the alcohol had performed its traditional function of oiling the wheels of conversation and it had got to that stage where everyone's hearing had to be especially acute and the other person not too far away or else a moving mouth would be seen and what was said being drowned in a barrage of many voices. The space to move in was getting more tightly packed than ever.  
  
Sir Monty Everard's deep baritone voice was holding forth on his pet subject to Sir Ian who was listening intently. Sir Ian reflected on the point that Sir Monty was a perfectly sound judge who had that innate understanding of the sensitivities of the executive and was realistic. He expounded on the difficulties that he had with that insufferable man Deed who persistently let the side down and Sir Ian's active listening mind switched off or just enough to hear.  
  
"Have you done to Neil what I think you have, Daddy?" George smiled in Joe's direction, John and Joe being otherwise immersed in conversation.  
  
"The man's still living, George. No one strikes my daughter and gets away without retribution," Jo rumbled.  
  
"Where would I be without Daddy to look after me?" George's aristocratic drawl spoke half in irony to cover up her real feelings. She was still Daddy's little girl all the years back to when he had taken her for a walk in the country and her little hand had held his huge, hard shinned hand from far up into the sky. While she was at her expensive boarding school, she had heard about the 'birds and the bees' from one of her more sexually precocious friends. Daddy would have died from embarrassment rather than explain that one.  
  
Sir Monty stalked majestically towards the centre of his party and proudly surveyed the room, lord of all those who attended the party or equal with his political friends. It was who attended his party that made the difference and in due course, he saw his path set out before him to be elevated to the appellate bench to follow in the footsteps of Joe Channing. Recognition had rightfully come his way when the New Years Honours list of a few years ago had resulted in him attending Buckingham Palace and to be admitted to the Ancient Order of Knights. As such, he saw his duty to preserve the foundations of this country from all who would disturb it. His cheeks were flushed from the heat of the party and too many glasses of white wine.   
  
John had temporarily become separated from both Jo and George and found himself isolated. All around him, the sound of many conversations had built up orchestrally as if from the intimacy of two violins criss crossing round each other to an overbearing crescendo. He tried to pick out individual items of conversation as he momentarily closed his eyes but he could not for the life of him work out the sense of the very loud and self assured voices. It felt the same as the time he was at Oxford when the 'baker's boy' had had odd moments of morose lucidity that he was with the others in the party but not of their kind no matter how skilfully he had disguised himself. In middle age, he reflected bitterly on how he still aspired to uphold the values which his old school had taught only to discover that they had sold their birthright in return for the rewards of the modern corrupt age. On his judge's throne, the individual barristers who appeared before him were all more or less bearable. When they were all pushed together in a large room becoming hotter and more airless by the minute, the alienation that he felt came to haunt him. Yet by the same token, it was what kept him up to the mark that he had set for himself and what made him human.  
  
"Hello Darkness my old friend  
  
I've come to talk with you again   
  
Because a vision softly creeping   
  
Left its seeds while I was sleeping   
  
And the vision that was planted in my brain,   
  
Still remains   
  
Within the Sounds of Silence.   
  
In restless dreams I walked alone  
  
Narrow streets of cobblestone,  
  
'Neath the halo of a street lamp,   
  
I turned my collar to the cold and damp  
  
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light  
  
That split the night  
  
And touched the sound of silence.   
  
And in the naked light I saw  
  
Ten thousand people, maybe more.  
  
People talking without speaking,  
  
People hearing without listening,  
  
People writing songs that voices never share  
  
And no one dared  
  
Disturb the sound of silence.   
  
"Fools" said I,"You do not know  
  
Silence like a cancer grows.  
  
Hear my words that I might teach you,  
  
Take my arms that I might reach you."  
  
But my words like silent raindrops fell,  
  
And echoed  
  
In the wells of silence   
  
And the people bowed and prayed   
  
To the neon god they made.  
  
And the sign flashed out its warning,  
  
In the words that it was forming.  
  
And the signs said, The words of the prophets  
  
are written on the subway walls  
  
And tenement halls.  
  
And whisper'd in the sounds of silence."  
  
It was funny the way those words tinkled their way on the wings of softly plucked, patterned guitar strings. Perhaps it was the fleeting memory of when he was at Larkhall and Karen had told him that Shaz Wiley had played and sung "Scarborough Fayre". There was no rhyme or reason in the way that thoughts were placed in his mind by some unknown presence like sparkling jewels. The problem as he saw it was the lack of control in the way these thoughts appeared as sometimes, they were troublesome and to be kept at bay.  
  
John opened his eyes and saw Sir Monty approach him. A happy note of inspiration had come to his mind from his memory of his tour round Larkhall. He personally thought that this party could do with livening up, himself included.  
  
"Monty, I bumped into a couple of old acquaintances of yours the other day, who told me a fascinating story." Too late, he bumped into John Deed while he was in mid procession, blinded by his self image and saw him too late to avoid him.   
  
"Indeed," he said gruffly.  
  
"You may remember meeting them every Thursday on the dot at eight o clock. Two slim attractive women of easy virtue, very friendly and hospitable with an excellent sense of humour. They gave me a very accurate description of you and said that you went with them as your wife wasn't attractive enough to get you going. Their words, I hasten to add, not mine," John raised his hands as if to be prepared in case the very angry Sir Monty struck him.  
  
"You are impertinent, sir, and defamatory," Sir Monty growled. He kept his voice down in case he might be overheard.  
  
"Doubtless you will remember their names as the Two Trudies. I hesitate to tell you the nickname they have for you," John replied, his face creased in amusement.  
  
"I trust that you denied any possible link between me, a Presiding Judge and two common prostitutes."   
  
"Well, I would deny that they are common. Rather attractive in their way. As for covering up for you, well, you must know me better than that," John's best insolent tones caused Sir Monty to turn round and stalk away back to Sir Ian.  
  
"Have you been getting into more trouble, John?" Jo's amused tones broke in on his thoughts.   
  
"No more than usual," John replied.  
  
"Are you feeling all right, John?" George exclaimed from his other side. "I was watching you with your eyes closed for a minute." She knew of old, John's moments of abstraction as she called it but when she asked him about it, he always made light of it.  
  
"I'm fine, George. Really, I am," John said to reassure her and to smooth things down in his normal style.   
  
It helped George at that minute to express concern about John. This and the whole theatrical performance of keeping up appearances at the party had distracted her from looking too closely at herself and from Jo expressing the sympathy that she felt utterly unworthy of. John looked at these two women, one his ex-wife and the other his lover. It was with blinding clarity that he realised for the first time, that he had only ever felt truly at hhome with George and then with Jo. He had the sudden urge to envelop them both in his arms, to for ever preserve them from any wrong doing, to keep them safe. But he managed to subdue the urge for sake of appearances. It would not do for anyone to resurrect any question of his professional conduct with any barrister who might in future appear before him. Both Jo and George watched him, knowing of old that look of contemplation.   
  
"What are you thinking?" Asked Jo.   
  
"Nothing remotely repeatable in present company," Put in George dryly, which made him smile. 


	109. Part One Hundred And Nine

Part One Hundred And Nine   
  
"Prison officer found dead!"   
  
It was half past six on the Sunday evening, and Karen couldn't believe what she was seeing on her television. She stood in the center of her lounge, the glass of wine she was carrying slipping from her hand without her noticing. She stared and stared at the television, totally unable to move a muscle.   
  
"Prison officer James Fenner was found dead earlier today. He was found shot in the abdomen and buried in the middle of Epping forest. Forensic experts estimate that he has been dead up to a week..."   
  
Karen stood and watched the news clip unfold. So, it had happened, Fenner had been found. Eventually, she became aware of the wine and broken glass surrounding her bare feet. Red wine looked like blood in the wrong light, and the shards of broken glass represented the fragments that her career and her life could well be in by this time tomorrow. In a daze, she cleared up the wine, all the time hearing the newsreader's voice.   
  
"Prison officer found dead... Prison officer found dead... Prison officer found dead..." There was only one thing she could do, phone Yvonne.   
  
"It's Karen," She said, as an opening to the conversation. "Have you seen the news?"   
  
"Yeah," Said Yvonne slowly. "That little reprieve didn't last long, did it."   
  
"Yvonne, this isn't funny," Said Karen sternly.   
  
"do I sound like I'm laughing?" Asked Yvonne, just as seriously.   
  
"How's Lauren?" Asked Karen, ignoring Yvonne's jibe.   
  
"she's taken the dog for a walk, said she wanted to do something normal."   
  
"Yvonne, what do we do now?"   
  
"You're guess is as good as mine, sweetheart, we wait and see."   
  
"But I think we both know where they'll start looking," Said Karen bitterly. "If anyone has, or should I say had, a legally documented grudge against Fenner, it was me. The police will get their hands on my initial statement of rape quicker than I snapped the handcuffs on Merriman."   
  
"Karen, you don't know that that's what they'll do."   
  
"Well, maybe you do then," Replied Karen sarcastically. "After all, you've been there, done that, got the mug the T-shirt and the poster. Soon I'll be asking you what it's like behind bars, that's if I don't find that out for myself in the meantime."   
  
"Sweetheart, I don't want to have a row. We'll deal with whatever happens, and we'll deal with it together."   
  
"Oh, such optimism," Said Karen dryly, "You just better hope you're right."   
  
Jo and John were sat close together in Jo's living-room. They'd come here after Legover's party, and now simply wanted some peace. Jo picked up the remote control and switched on the television in time for the early evening news. They sat, stunned, as the news clip ran before their amazed eyes.   
  
"Prison officer found dead! Prison officer James Fenner was found dead earlier today. He was found shot in the abdomen and buried in the middle of Epping forest. Forensic experts estimate that he has been dead up to a week..."   
  
They watched as shots were taken from the air of first Epping Forest and then Larkhall prison. The news helicopter cruised over the surrounding area of both the sites, to the speech from an inspector from The Metropolitan police who said that no stone would be left unturned in the hunt for this man's killer. When the report came to an end, John switched it off.   
  
"I suppose that puts an end to any possible court case," He said quietly. Jo looked at him slightly aghast.   
  
"Is that all you can say?"   
  
"Well, what do you want me to say, Jo? The man's dead, clearly by some unorthodox means, which would by extension put an end to Karen's civil or criminal case."   
  
"George needs to know about this," Said Jo, moving to pick up the cordless phone.   
  
George was slumped in a heap on her sofa. She was tired after having to maintain her act at Legover's party, and all she really wanted to do was nothing. She was listening to some soft music and drinking white wine. She knew that drinking probably wasn't a good idea, what with the distinct lack of food she hadn't eaten that day, but the cool, sharp, crispness of the Frascati was making her feel slightly less volatile. When the phone rang, she had half a mind to ignore it, but seeing Jo's number, she answered.   
  
"George, have you seen the news?" Asked Jo's careful voice.   
  
"No, why?"   
  
"Fenner's been found dead."   
  
"What?" Asked George sharply. "When?"   
  
"Earlier today."   
  
"Where?"   
  
"Epping Forest of all places."   
  
"Jo, why am I getting a really bad feeling about this?"   
  
"He was shot." George went suddenly quiet.   
  
"Jo, I think we have a problem," She said eventually, "One that John probably needs to hear as well." Jo switched the phone on to hands free so that George could talk to both of them.   
  
"when did either of you last see Karen Betts?"   
  
"Over two weeks ago," Replied Jo, "When I brought her to see you."   
  
"And how did she seem to you then?" Asked George.   
  
"Perfectly normal, under the circumstances. Why?" Then the penny dropped. "George, no, she wouldn't."   
  
"You didn't see her last Monday," Replied George, laughing mirthlessly. "Guilt written all over her face, though at the time I didn't recognise it for what it was." John had remained quiet throughout the entire exchange. But George hadn't forgotten his presence.   
  
"John," She said, not letting him avoid the issue, "You didn't answer my question."   
  
"Yes," Said John with a heavy sigh, "I did see her last week, Thursday to be exact."   
  
"Oh, yes," Said George, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. "You went to Larkhall to supposedly check up on my punishment. So, are you going to enlighten us as to the lovely Ms Betts' apparent state of mind?" Jo could feel the icy trickle of dread running down her spine.   
  
"She seemed relatively normal," Said John slowly, as if trying to remember, though the two women were perfectly well aware of his instant, accurate memory for such things.   
  
"And are you saying that as a lawyer or as a lover?" Asked George. Jo let out a slightly hysterical laugh, the incongruity of the situation finally catching up with her.   
  
"Do you know something," She said to George, the bite of sarcasm present in her voice also. "I said exactly the same thing to him once, though I believe that was concerning Lady Francesca Rochester."   
  
"I don't doubt it," Replied George. "John, answer the question," She said firmly.   
  
"I don't consider that such a fatuous question requires a response," Said John, furious with George for putting the thought of such a possibility in to Jo's head.   
  
"Oh, I don't know," Said Jo, "I must admit to being a little intrigued."   
  
"She seemed a little on edge," He admitted eventually, "As if there was something she wanted to tell me, but couldn't."   
  
"The nail hit well and truly on the head," Replied George. "She was exactly the same with me when I saw her last Monday."   
  
"this is utterly ridiculous," Said John firmly. "Karen Betts would no more have murdered Fenner than any of us would have done."   
  
"John, will you for once, please extract your libido from the situation," Said George, earning a fruitless glare at the phone from John. As he reached out to pick it up, clearly with the intention of walking out of Jo's hearing to have a furious argument with George, Jo took his hand in hers and held on to it.   
  
"When I saw her," Continued John, ignoring George's jibe, "She was talking about how everyone Fenner had ever abused, deserved to see him pay for what he'd done, but that she wasn't altogether sure that she did. I remember, the mere mention of his name made her look guilty and horrified all at once. I didn't think about it at the time, but now it makes sense. I will not be persuaded, except by her own confession, that Karen Betts killed James Fenner. However, she certainly knows far more about this than she ought too."   
  
"George, do you really think she did this?" Asked Jo quietly.   
  
"Well," Said George, "If a man had held you down, forced his way inside you, and then virtually walked away Scot free, wouldn't you want to see him beg for his life?"   
  
"No, I wouldn't," Said Jo without a moment's thought. "I'd want to see him rot behind bars."   
  
"That's what I used to think Karen wanted," Said George, her voice having lost its bite in favour of a miserable finality, "But it seems we were all wrong. The question is, how on Earth to we get her out of this?"   
  
"Stop, right, there," Said John firmly. "If Karen Betts has committed murder, and I say if, neither of you should become involved. You both know far too much about her and would therefore have no choice but to end up becoming far too emotionally involved with her case."   
  
"Only a man would say something like that," Said Jo scornfully.   
  
"Quite," Replied George, "If she did do it, and I'd almost put my Munnings on the fact that she did, she had the best reason in the world for wanting rid of him." John was forced to admit that whilst some may say that hell was being cooped up in eternity with your friends, hell for him was being backed in to a corner by his lover and his ex-wife.   
  
"If Karen is in any way involved in this," Said Jo, "We have got to help her. It's our duty if nothing else. What would you do, sign her over to some thoroughly fickle idiot such as Brian Cantwell or Neumann Mason-Alan?"   
  
"God forbid," Put in George.   
  
"don't you think you'd better find out if you're right," Added John, "Before you start planning her defence?"   
  
"Fine," Said George without a pause, "tomorrow morning, we'll give her a version of the third degree that she isn't likely to forget. I'm not leaving this one to our lackeys in the Metropolitan police. If she's got something to confess, I would suggest that two people she knows and possibly trusts are far more likely to get at the truth than a couple of bumbling detectives with nothing better to do." Jo couldn't help smiling at George's turn of phrase.   
  
"Yeah, well, you're doing this in chambers," Said John firmly, "I'm not having you tare her to shreds without a witness or someone to back her up."   
  
"You just can't entertain the possibility that someone you were preparing to seduce might just be guilty of murder, can you."   
  
"George," Said John slowly, but with the clear edge of warning in his voice, "I wasn't preparing to seduce anyone, least of all someone who's been through everything that she has."   
  
"You really are a terrible liar, John Deed," Said George mockingly. "I'm just glad that I no longer have to put up with your wandering. Jo, you clearly deserve a medal for perseverance. Will you contact Karen in the morning, or will I?"   
  
"Leave it to me, George. I think this needs the gentle approach." When George had put the phone down, Jo simply looked at John.   
  
"It's all supposition, you know," He said gently. "I have never attempted or thought about attempting to seduce Karen Betts."   
  
"I hope so, John," Jo replied resignedly, "But I'm not about to forget that George knows you better than I do, and let's face it, Karen Betts is, at least physically, your type."   
  
"do you really think Karen Betts would have done such a thing?" He asked, trying to change the subject.   
  
"George's reasoning couldn't have been more to the point," Replied Jo, "Who knows what that kind of torment might do to a person's mind. I'm certainly not going to dismiss it as a possibility. Above anything else, John, you really must keep an open mind about this."   
  
"Oh, and that's really what you and George are doing," he threw back.   
  
"What's important," Replied Jo, "Is that George and I are prepared for the possibility. You've had just as much faith in Karen Betts as we have, but you might have to face the prospect of letting go. The people we put our trust in, are always capable of letting us down. Don't forget that." 


	110. Part One Hundred And Ten

Part One Hundred and Ten  
  
It was an ordinary Sunday for Nikki and Helen, the same dreamily pleasant day when they had all the time in the world with each other. Helen had watched "The Heaven and Earth Show" first thing, a borderline religious programme which she was interested in. Outside, the changeable autumn weather had piled high dark threatening clouds which half blotted out the sunshine and a stinging squall of blustery wind threw raindrops against the bedroom window. It sounded cold and blustery as winter was definitely setting in. Nikki had lain in bed till a bit later until she felt more comfortable to face the day after an early morning cigarette. After a busy night at the club, she hadn't had any natural inclination to greet the early morning sunshine like a member of the same ancient order of Druids. Let those who like it and let her enjoy her early morning laze in bed. They went on to have a lazy Sunday dinner of whatever was easiest to prepare and lay back, with that feeling of peace and contentment and the rest of the day to luxuriate in. It was the end of the year for gardening and the approaching winter cold made them both glad to stay inside.  
  
"The film's on in a couple of minutes," Her carrying voice reached to the far end of the flat while Nikki was busying herself in finishing off the cleaning.  
  
Helen had recently come out of the shower and had slipped her jeans and top back on. Her bare feet trod the soft carpet as she made her way to the armchair as she brushed her still damp hair and reached out for the TV remote control to watch the film that they wanted to immerse themselves in.  
  
Helen had clicked on her hairdryer and its droning sound filled the flat. She had chosen the channel by feel while she concentrated on drying her hair but she had miscalculated as the image of a normal looking smart suited TV announcer appeared on the screen. She allowed him to mouth over the sound of her hair drier the news headlines until, to her huge surprise, the image of the front gates of Larkhall jumped at her from out of the TV screen.   
  
"This isn't right. That dump doesn't belong there on the screen," Helen's thoughts flashed. Day after day for so long, she had parked her car outside those same gates, looking up briefly at those high grey walls, fixing her thoughts and her face so that she could be bright and smiling for Ken or whoever was on the gate and, there, her vision was directed through the impersonal eye of the TV camera in roughly the same perspective. The only difference was that she knew the programme would cut to the next item while her former self knew that no such editing was possible. Real life wasn't like that. So why did part of her still believe that the place was only real when the programme said so?  
  
"Nikki, come here immediately," Helen's urgent tones rang out in total shock and horror, a split second later. "It's about Larkhall."  
  
Nikki shot out of the bedroom to join Helen just in time for the main news item to be repeated and gone into as much depth as the bloody TV news ever did.   
  
"Prison officer found dead!"   
  
"Prison officer James Fenner was found dead earlier today. He was found shot in the abdomen and buried in the middle of Epping Forest. Forensic experts estimate that he has been dead for up to a week..."   
  
A feeling of unreality blocked off the trailing comment and speculation and when the news had switched to some inane topic that wasn't worthy of consideration, both felt like banging on the TV screen to give them more answers instead of the glib one liners thrown out so authoritatively.   
  
"Well, well, someone's finally got the bastard," Nikki said open mouthed, though her statement sounded cool and dismissive, in her mind, she felt anything but.  
  
"I don't know what to think," Helen said slowly shaking her head. This sudden leap of events out of her past was too much to take in. "Who could have done it?"  
  
"Well, if the police start looking for a motive for someone killing Fenner, they will have to question about half the prison population of Larkhall, past and present, and some of the decent screws, past or present, oh yes, his ex wife and people that we don't know anything about."  
  
"You don't mean us?" Helen queried, fear in her eyes.  
  
"Possibly, Helen. But you know from all the detective films ever made, the three questions are motive, opportunity and method. Sure, we've both got grudges against the bastard but we're both busy people and the chances are that we would be knocked off the very long list. Then again, your dream of vengeance was to run him out of the prison service with no pension and to make the prison service safe from the likes of him if I get you right. My dreams, well, while I was at Larkhall, I might at one time have cheerfully killed him, when the little matter of the appeal came up, only once was I ever tempted to wipe out old scores, him included, only you came in just in time. Since then, while you wanted to forget about that place and put it far behind you, then being your caring sharing lover, I felt the same. We passed up a chance to see the bastard get done over the legal way when Jo contacted us, remember?" Nikki concluded putting her forefinger under Helen's chin.  
  
"You're right, Nikki," Helen smiled in relief as she put her arms round Nikki. "It's the 'policeman driving up my backside' guilt trip."  
  
"And you're the psychologist?" Nikki asked jokingly. "I'm seriously wondering who did kill Fenner and why."  
  
At Cassie's and Roisin's house, Roisin, being the one to keep up with the news, had clicked the TV on just before Michael and Niamh were due to clump noisily downstairs and commandeer the television for the children's afternoon programmes of fantasy cartoon figures and the latest pop news and celebrity chit chat. Cassie's main interest in the news surfaced briefly round about budget time when she sensed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, being a mean minded covetous bastard, aimed to also make a couple of her pleasures more expensive, yet again, by raising the tax on cigarettes and alcohol. Other than that, it was an endless prattle by nobbing men in suits who had the gift of the gab in not answering a straight question being put to them. In an interview with David Frost earlier in the morning when the kids were in bed, she had seen the right honourable Minister for Trade, Neil Houghton explain that it wasn't the Government's fault that businesses were suffering from the high price of the pound, it was that the Bank of England had been allowed by the government to have total freedom to determine the level to which the pound should be set. Surely, my Right Honourable Shadow Minister for Trade had no objection to seeing the market determine the price of the pound. He explained that a strong pound could only be good for Britain and that his party were as committed to enabling a proper entrepreneurial spirit so that Britain could sell its goods abroad but at the same time, being the Party of Compassion and investing a record amount of money in health and education. It was at this point when the nobbing useless man started unreeling a whole stream of statistics that Cassie started moaning to Roisin to change the channel before the kids took over.  
  
Roisin was about to switch channels when the news came on and Cassie gave up with a sigh and a groan. Never mind, only five minutes more and her torture would end.  
  
"Prison officer found dead!"   
  
"Prison officer James Fenner was found dead earlier today. He was found shot in the abdomen and buried in the middle of Epping Forest. Forensic experts estimate that he has been dead for up to a week..."   
  
  
  
"I don't like this, Cassie. If they've found the body, it means that the police will start a manhunt. You've seen this sort of thing before on Crimewatch. Only it will be Yvonne and Lauren that they'll end up after," Roisin said, fear for their friends in their eyes.  
  
"Oh come now, Roash," Cassie answered, trying to comfort Roisin's fears and her own. "The nobbing police are going to have to work out who hadn't got a grudge against Fenner. Think of all the years he's worked at Larkhall, hardly a convent school exactly, and all the women he's mistreated over the years, and people like Karen and they've got a huge job on their hands."   
  
"Are you really as convinced of what you are saying as you pretend you are, Cassie Tyler or are you trying to make me feel better?" Roisin looked sharply in her direction.  
  
Cassie shook her head to clear her thoughts, her body language betraying her own lack of confidence in her bold words.  
  
"Sort of three quarters convinced," Cassie said, smiling at Roisin and draping her arms round Roisin's shoulders. She closed her eyes for a few moments while she collected her thoughts without interruption.  
  
"I'm absolutely convinced that there are a lot of women that we know of who have a bigtime grudge against Fenner, some of whom would express it violently. I'm convinced that there are a whole lot of other women we don't know who feel the same, as Fenner has been around Larkhall for a long time. I'm hoping against hope that Lauren hasn't left anything incriminating behind that would link her to the murder. I'm really not sure who the police would be after, as we know a lot about Fenner that they don't know. Fact is, Roash, I haven't a clue about how much they know and I'm hoping and praying."  
  
"You pray to God, Cassie? That will be the day," Roisin laughed.  
  
"When we were both at Larkhall, I lay in my bunk, night after night, I prayed to God that you would stay away from the drugs. More than I prayed for anything in my life," Cassie said in a soft voice, with a real soulful intensity which uncovered her light, flip exterior.   
  
They kissed briefly and let the announcer carry on with the rest of the news stories but nobody was hearing him.  
  
To the absolute second, the thunder sounded as Michael and Niamh came downstairs from where they had been doing their homework and assumed their best 'children's concentration' position while Cassie and Roisin looked on tolerantly.  
  
Somehow, an innocent everyday quality had gone out of the day although nothing had changed. At the back of both their minds was the unspoken obligation that they had to do something for their friends though quite what, they weren't entirely sure of.  
  
The news repeated itself inescapably like some sound loop as the evening wore on. Both Nikki and Helen were driven by some horrid fascination to see the matter played out according to the best news drama shock headlines that the well oiled machine could slot into the machinery.   
  
"I don't know how I feel about this one, Helen," Nikki said contemplatively, fingering her wine glass by its long stem. "On the one hand, I'm glad the bastard's dead and on the other hand, the search will be out for somebody who was desperate to kill him in the first place and I'm afraid for that person knowing that the chase is on."  
  
"If I hadn't caught you in the PO's room when you were threatening Fenner, do you really think that you would or could have murdered him?" Helen suddenly turned round with one of her direct looks.  
  
Nikki searched the back of her mind for the woman she had been. It was all so very long ago when the control over her life and others had been wrenched from her and the thousand and one things of her present life were denied to her at that time. For instance, she would not have been allowed to laze away in bed without someone controlling her life. Her exercise in menacing Fenner with the bottle that she very nearly smashed and stuck in his neck was an exercise in straight revenge but a tiny bit of it was taking back into her hands the ability to have power over her life, if only in frightening Fenner. It was almost as if she was a different woman then. Almost, but not quite.  
  
"I really don't know, Helen. I can't give you an honest answer," Nikki said slowly. "I would like to say that killing that bastard Fenner wasn't worth wrecking my chances of getting out on appeal for both of our sakes," and here, Nikki looked round at their cosy flat and every mundane detail told her how precious her freedom was, "but I know how I felt. I just don't know if I would have actually gone that far. I don't even know if I was using my reputation to scare the shit out of him or psyching myself up to kill him. I'd sooner not want to think what might have been, Helen. It doesn't bear thinking about."  
  
Helen wrapped her arms round Nikki who was shivering from the memory of that moment. It was a memory that she wanted to bury forever.  
  
"Do you think it was Yvonne, Nikki?" The thought that had been plaguing both of them finally burst through into words.  
  
"I don't know. I really don't know," Nikki said. At a moment like this, only honesty could guide her however unpalatable she might feel at the thought turned into sound.  
  
Cassie and Roisin had to pretend to the children that there was nothing on their minds but the normal inconsequentialities of a family Sunday night when the children had to get ready for school the next day, to have a bath and freshen themselves up for an early night. The equally inconsequential TV programmes that both children watched had to be endured while they had a compulsion to see if there was any latest developments on the news. Eventually, Michael and Niamh were tucked up in bed with their goodnight kiss on the cheek and Roisin and Cassie smiled to them as they tiptoed out and closed the door quietly.  
  
"Let's try the Channel 4 news, Cassie. It might tell us more."  
  
They settled themselves down with the news and, this time, they resolved to watch the news one more time to see if it made more sense this time. The only difference this time was the shot of Epping Forest which looked like a standard long shot of a woodland scene on a sunny day. There was something about the news that refused to translate itself into reality however much Lauren's last visit had done so, in reality.  
  
"What do you think we should do, Roash?" Cassie's puzzled voice asked.  
  
"Phone Lauren and tell her that we're there for her," Roisin replied with immediate decisiveness.   
  
After Roisin and Cassie had put the phones down, they felt a sense of personal inadequacy. Yvonne who picked up the phone was dry and businesslike as she handed the phone over to Lauren but that was perhaps to be expected from a phone call out of the blue. They were not to know about the extremely tense phone conversation between Karen and Yvonne earlier on and that Yvonne wanted to temporarily disconnect herself from the world before the world took it into its mind to come crashing through the front door in the shape of the Old Bill like the time they came to arrest her for hiring a hit man on Charlie's arch rival.  
  
"We told you that we'd stand by you, Lauren, when we saw you last time. The fact that it's been on the nobbing news doesn't make any difference," Cassie's firm voice came over the miles to Lauren's earpiece.  
  
"Even after it's been splashed all over the news?" Lauren asked hesitantly.  
  
"Does that really change anything between us and you, Lauren?" Came Roisin's motherly tones in reply with all the sweetness of melted honey.  
  
"I guess it doesn't," Lauren's slightly shaky voice answered her. She hadn't thought of it that way.  
  
"Why don't the two of you come over next Saturday," Roisin urged. "The children are stopping at my mother's."  
  
"Do you really mean it?" Lauren asked incredulously. At the back of her mind was the touching way they were trying to carry on as if everything was normal. They aren't fools though, they know the situation. "Do you want to come to Cassie and Roisin's next Saturday, Mum?" She said talking to Yvonne who was sitting motionless in her chair.  
  
"No thanks, if its all the same to you," Yvonne said in an unusually subdued tone of voice. "I'll only spoil the party. But thank them from me." None of Charlie's old friends who knew Lauren since she was little have given a toss or else they would have phoned.  
  
There was a real suppressed sense of anger for some of those wankers who would be the first to pile on the excuses if she ever felt like confronting them which, at the moment, she hadn't got the strength of will or inclination to do.  
  
"I'll come over on my own. I'll be looking forward to it," Came Lauren's reply directed back down the phone. There was something about the situation that gave the social call an extra urgency. It might end up being her last taste of freedom unless the Atkins luck held out. 


	111. Part One Hundred And Eleven

Part One Hundred And Eleven   
  
When Karen drove in to the car park of the prison on Monday morning, she found a sea of press waiting for anyone who could offer a comment. Fighting her way through them, she collected her keys from the gate lodge and let herself in to the comparative quiet of the wing. Walking in to the officers' room, she found Di and Sylvia, along with Collin and Selina, speculating on the previous day's events.   
  
"But who can have done it?" Di was saying. "I mean, it's not as if anyone had anything against him, is it." Karen almost laughed out loud at this assertion, but managed to restrain herself.   
  
"I've always said this job's more than it's worth," Put in Sylvia. "At least when the cons are in here, we know what they're up too. But it's when they get let out that the trouble starts."   
  
"What, so you reckon it was an ex-con who did this?" Said Di.   
  
"More than likely," Replied Sylvia. Karen thought it was about time she intervened.   
  
"Let's leave the speculation to the police, shall we? There'll be more than enough time for questions when they arrive, because arrive they will."   
  
"Oh, marvelous," Grumbled Sylvia, "It'll be just like when Renee Williams and Virginia O'kane were killed, and as if we can tell them anything." Telling them all to keep on top of things, because the inmates would probably use this as an opportunity to kick off, Karen walked to her office. What she'd said to Sylvia was right. It would only be a matter of time before the whole world descended on Larkhall and its inhabitants. But on the dot of nine, the ringing of her phone banished all thought of inmates and officers from her mind.   
  
"Karen Betts?" She answered, expecting it to be Grayling, but it was someone quite different.   
  
"Karen, it's Jo."   
  
"Hello," Karen said carefully. "I wondered when I'd be hearing from you." This wasn't strictly true, but it felt like the right thing to say.   
  
"I think we need to talk, don't you," Jo said, sounding very calm and extremely professional, but at the same time slightly removed. Thinking she just might know what was coming, Karen said,   
  
"Yes, though I have no idea what you think I can tell you." God, she was getting good at this acting thing, she thought.   
  
"Well, that's what myself, George and John would like to find out."   
  
"Do I need a lawyer?"   
  
"that depends on whether you think you'll need one," replied Jo.   
  
"then on balance," Said Karen slowly, "No, I don't. Where is this delightful little interview going to take place?"   
  
"John's chambers at the Old Bailey."   
  
"so that if it needs to go official, there's no better place," finished Karen, the bitter edge of hurt creeping through.   
  
"Well, I don't think that was actually the reason behind John's suggestion, but yes, I suppose so."   
  
When Karen drew up in front of the Old Bailey, Jo was waiting for her. Nothing needed to be said by either of them, as they were both preternaturally aware of the seriousness of the situation. Karen simply followed Jo inside and upstairs to John's chambers, where John and George were waiting for them. John was stood behind his enormous mahogany desk, and George was seated in one of the hard, straight-backed chairs in front of the desk. Coope was nowhere to be seen, having been temporarily though politely banished by John, who wanted no audience for the interview that was about to take place. When Karen walked in and saw the closed expression on John's face and the predatory, itching for the attack look on George's, she said,   
  
"Wow, my very own version of the Spanish inquisition."   
  
"Smart comments will get you absolutely nowhere," Replied George icily. Karen looked George full in the face.   
  
"Yes, I suppose I should give due respect to the results of your ever so exemplary behaviour on the three occasions you were found in contempt of court." George bridled at this very accurate plunge of the knife.   
  
"contempt of court and murder, are two very different things," She replied, her sense of betrayal making her anger all the more palpable. Feeling like an umpire at the women's final at Wimbledon, John said,   
  
"Sit down," In the kind of voice that told Karen she did have at least the tentative possibility of an ally. Karen sat in the armchair, and John took the seat behind his desk, a metaphorical barrier that Karen would have clung to had she been in her own office. Jo and George sat opposite her, with John slightly removed, showing Karen that he was merely there as a witness and wanted absolutely no part in what was coming. George was lighting one cigarette from another, and Karen could feel the anger coming off her like heat. Wanting to get this over as soon as possible, Karen opened the conversation with,   
  
"You got me here, because you think I killed Fenner, didn't you." George laughed mirthlessly.   
  
"Now, why would anyone have cause to think that," She said, the sarcasm dripping like molten lava. Karen ignored her and looked at Jo.   
  
"Is that it," She asked, "do you seriously think I'd be so stupid as to kill the man I was hoping one day to see behind bars?"   
  
"Did you?" Asked Jo gently, now thinking that George was definitely on the wrong track with this one. No guilty killer would have attempted to play George at her own game so successfully.   
  
"No, I didn't," Replied Karen.   
  
"One would possibly understand your motive," said George, with slightly less abrasiveness than before. "He did, after all, rape you, make you suffer one of the worst torments a woman can go through."   
  
"answer me this," Said Karen, lighting a cigarette of her own. "Why, if I was planning to do away with Fenner, would I have been working with both of you to construct first a criminal, then a civil case either against Fenner directly or at least involving him. Why, would I make the most ridiculous of all errors, of getting myself known pretty well inside out by two of the most successful barristers in the business, to say nothing of a high court judge. I may have made some fairly catastrophic errors of judgment in my time, but that, I can assure you, isn't one of them."   
  
"the working towards either the criminal or the civil case might have been a pretty brilliant piece of cover up," Replied George, "Because you certainly had me taken in," She added bitterly, "And that's not something I admit lightly."   
  
"Will you get a grip for one second," Said Karen, her anger easily matching George's. "I wanted that case and the criminal one to follow, to be as successful as you did, for obvious reasons, far more than you did. I work in a prison, for god's sake, which means that I know exactly what the consequences would be of committing a serious crime."   
  
"Karen does have a point," Put in John quietly. George turned and glared at him furiously.   
  
"You keep out of this," She said, and Karen was amused to see the ex-wife, not the barrister talking. Jo thought it was high time for some rational behaviour.   
  
"Karen," She began carefully, "We cannot ignore the fact that as far as motive, method and opportunity are concerned, you do actually figure significantly in all three. Whilst you have so far tried to explain away your motive, it cannot yet be discounted. As far as opportunity goes, you have unlimited access to the shift schedules of all your staff. This would have given you at least the exact knowledge of when he would and wouldn't be at work. You would also have had access to his address details and you may even have been aware of whether or not he was living with anyone."   
  
"I'm not the only one in that place who could obtain access to such information," Replied Karen.   
  
"No, but let's move on to the method," continued Jo, keeping her voice calm, clearly in order to make Karen drop her guard and stumble her way in to a confession. "You are, by your own admission, having an affair with Yvonne Atkins."   
  
"Who, let's not forget," Interrupted George, "Did at one time have access via her criminal connections to such things as guns and the knowledge of how to use them." Knowing that George was getting a little too close to the truth, Karen made a fervent effort to stay calm.   
  
"You do realise," She said carefully, "That all your arguments are built on nothing more than supposition and circumstantial evidence?" John was forced to hide a smile, thinking that Karen had been spending far too long with both Jo and George. "And whilst hearsay might be your middle name in some circumstances," Continued Karen, looking George in the eye, "It won't help you here." George was visibly bristling, the hackles rising prior to the kill.   
  
"People have been convicted on much less," Said George, forced to admire Karen for her unwavering resilience and tenacity.   
  
"And many such convictions are later proved to be miscarriages of justice," Said Karen, easily keeping up with George in this verbal tennis match. John felt that it was time for a word from him.   
  
"George," He said slowly, "Exactly what made you so convinced that it was Karen who committed this crime?"   
  
"You agreed to act purely as an impartial observer," Snapped George, "And Ms Betts needs absolutely no help from you. She is quite capable of speaking up for herself."   
  
"Oh, I'll take that as a complement, shall I," Put in Karen dryly. "But John has raised an interesting point, Ms Channing," She said, giving John a brief smile and laying particular emphasis on George's name, playing on the fact that John was still addressing her as a human being, not as a murder suspect. Cursing John for doing this to her, George took a breath to speak, but realised that she didn't actually have even a vaguely credible reason.   
  
"I don't believe it," Said Karen in mock surprise, "I've actually managed to make you speechless." Rising to the bate, George stood up and began pacing.   
  
"As ridiculous as it sounds," She began, "it was simply a feeling, an instinct."   
  
"And you ought to know better than I do," Replied Karen, "That something as intangible as a feeling, wouldn't stand up in court. You're not seriously telling me that when you heard about Fenner, you immediately arrived at my name, and then thought up the arguments to fit it?" Not in the least willing to reveal that this is exactly what she had done, George said,   
  
"You certainly knew something about Fenner's death. I'd stake my house on that." George began gradually moving closer to Karen, as a cat would stalk its prey, ready at any moment with the razor teeth and needle-sharp claws. "When you came to see me last Monday, you were different, distracted, clearly uprooted by something I couldn't quite put my finger on. My secretary wasn't in that day, and I left you to make us some coffee. When I returned, and disturbed your contemplation of the scenery outside my office, you looked like I'd called you back from something far bigger than the case you were there to discuss. I didn't make the connection at the time, but the look on your face was part fear, part guilt. That was it, wasn't it. Less than twenty four hours previously, you'd discovered that someone you knew, possibly even someone you loved, had committed a crime that in this country, procures a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment." George was stood in front of Karen now, nailing her to the spot with those piercing blue eyes. Jo and John simply watched, realising that George, at last, was really on to something. Karen still looked relatively calm, but her barrage had gone.   
  
"You can't prove that," Said Karen, the bite of sarcasm noticeably removed from her tone. George laughed.   
  
"Oh, I could if I wanted to," She replied.   
  
"You got me here to find out if I killed Fenner," Said Karen, "I think you've come to the conclusion that I didn't. Can we leave it at that?" Before George could reply, John said,   
  
"Would you say that under oath?"   
  
"Yes, of course," Said Karen, turning to look over at him. "I might have wanted Fenner to rot for what he did to me and countless others, but I definitely would have preferred him alive to do it." Then, looking back at George, she said more firmly, spacing out her words, "I didn't kill Fenner. Now, please, will you let me go?"   
  
"I think you know all three of us a little better than that," Replied George, not quite ready to relinquish the reins of her inner prosecutor. "If you didn't kill Fenner, then who did?"   
  
"Even if I knew," Said Karen, praying that her act would hold out, "What would it achieve for me to tell you?"   
  
"Because," Said George, "committing murder and shielding someone for committing murder carry the same success rate in career suicide."   
  
"Your career is always your highest concern, isn't it," Karen replied, receiving a stunned expression from Jo and a visible wince from John. Karen realised that this had been going a little too far, but she wasn't about to apologise for putting her foot in something she knew nothing about. Ignoring this extremely sharp dig, George moved even closer to Karen.   
  
"Was it Yvonne?" She asked, not beating around the bush any longer. "did she do this because removing the culprit is the Atkins way of getting rid of a problem?"   
  
"No," Replied Karen quietly, "It wasn't Yvonne. She was behind bars long enough not to want to go back."   
  
"You're not seriously trying to tell me that Yvonne Atkins was quite prepared to see Fenner suffer the legal way?" Said George scornfully. She leaned even closer to Karen. "It must have irked her something rotten to realise that such a loathsome cretin as Fenner had forced himself on her latest acquisition." When George leaned over her, Karen was hit with the feeling of total panic that she'd only previously experienced on that horrific night when Fenner had done just what George was putting in to words. She had an all mighty urge to push George away, to get out of this room, out of this building, to take in deep, shuddering gasps of fresh air. John must have seen something of the brief fear in Karen's face, because he said sternly,   
  
"That is quite enough. We have established that Karen had absolutely nothing to do with James Fenner's murder, so I see no point in continuing this conversation. Jo, will you escort Karen out to her car?" Giving him a brief, shaky smile of gratitude, Karen followed Jo out of the room and down the stairs.   
  
When the door had closed, George turned on John.   
  
"What on Earth did you do that for?" She demanded furiously. "I was just getting somewhere."   
  
"I don't know what you did," Replied John, clearly unimpressed, "But you frightened her."   
  
"Yes, probably because I was getting close to the truth."   
  
"George," Said John, massaging his temples at the approach of an ex-induced headache, "We established the fact that she had nothing to do with Fenner's death. Let's leave it at that for now. I'll try again later in the week. A slightly less confrontational approach might be more successful." George walked over and leaned her hands on his desk, staring him in the face.   
  
"The only reason you went easy on her is because at some point, you'd quite like to finish what I suspect you started when you saw her last week."   
  
"You suggested something similar last night," Replied John conversationally, "Which I might add was not the most tactful thing to say in front of Jo. But that's beside the point. You ought to know me well enough by now, to be sure that I do not compromise my professional duty by allowing my personal involvement with anyone to influence any decision I might make. Let's face it, I've had you and Jo before me often enough, even together on numerous occasions. Have I ever let that deter me from maintaining the correct level of impartiality?"   
  
"That's open for discussion," Replied George. "But you're not denying that you find Karen Betts attractive, that you'd quite like to sleep with her?"   
  
"No, of course not," Said John amiably. "But any hopes I may have in that direction had absolutely nothing to do with why I felt it necessary to back her up. She didn't kill Fenner, she neither wanted it to happen or was aware that it was going to happen. Yes, she may have known it had, fairly soon after it did, but I will get to the bottom of why she didn't report it."   
  
"And if her explanation is satisfactory, you'll continue where you left off?"   
  
"Maybe," Said John, knowing he was winding her up but totally unable to resist.   
  
"As much as I'm furious about her not having reported such a serious crime," Said George, "I wouldn't want her to temporarily fall under your spell."   
  
"You make me sound like Fenner," Said John disgustedly.   
  
"John, Karen Betts does not need your type of conquest that simply means screw them and scarper, and especially not now."   
  
"You want to make your mind up, George," Replied John, looking at her searchingly. "First, you all but rip her to shreds, accusing her of everything from murder to perverting the course of justice, and now, you're doing your utmost to protect her from my so-called ruthless advances. The only reason you're angry with me, is because you were wrong. You're inwardly furious at yourself for thinking Karen guilty and having to acknowledge the fact that she isn't, so you end up taking out your anger at yourself on me, and for the simple, innocent liking I have for her."   
  
"Innocent?" Said George on an angry laugh, "That'll be the day. You haven't got an innocent bone in your body where women are concerned, and you know it."   
  
Jo walked with Karen to her car, and they simply stood looking at each other. Loathing awkward silences, Karen said,   
  
"I'm sorry if you think I betrayed your trust. I really didn't know this was going to happen."   
  
"That's obvious," Said Jo quietly, not blaming Karen for keeping them in the dark. "But you do know who killed him, don't you."   
  
"You know I do," Replied Karen, "But to reveal such information, would without doubt mean signing my own death certificate."   
  
"Is that because it was Yvonne?" Jo persisted gently.   
  
"I might have yet again made the wrong decision with regards to an Atkins, but I wouldn't shield Yvonne for murder, and like I said, Yvonne would never have contemplated doing anything to land her back behind bars."   
  
"When George asked you if it was Yvonne, why did she frighten you?"   
  
"Was it that obvious?" Said Karen regretfully. "Ever since Fenner, I can't stand anyone encroaching on my personal space. I didn't like it much before, but now it scares the hell out of me, and when I'm under extreme stress, the feeling of panic is much easier to provoke."   
  
"Karen," Said Jo, returning to the subject of Fenner's murder, "We do need to know who did kill Fenner. I know without doubt that you didn't, and by your reasoning that it wasn't yvonne, but in order to if necessary defend you, I need to know what I'm dealing with."   
  
"As you are so insistent on getting this out of me, you might try looking in the direction of Yvonne's daughter. But you didn't get this from me. You've got absolutely no idea how shocked I was, and yes, I do feel as stupid as it's possible to feel. I shouldn't have kept quiet about it, but for a while, I think part of me didn't quite believe it was real." Then, unlocking the car door, she said, "If you don't want to see me following the same journey as Fenner, then you won't under any circumstances reveal your source. Yvonne might not have wanted or even suspected that her daughter would do something like this, but if she thought I'd grassed up her daughter, I'd be history."   
  
"Warning received and understood," Said Jo with a brief smile. "But if you ever should require my services, don't hesitate to get in touch with me."   
  
"I don't think it's me you'll be hearing from," Replied Karen. "But thank you, I'll bare it in mind." As she drove away, Jo thought she could see Karen's armour beginning to crack. It clearly hadn't been a lightly made decision for Karen to protect Yvonne's daughter, and whilst Jo could only think that it had been the wrong one, she was forced to admit that Karen had the most valid of all reasons.   
  
When Jo returned to John's chambers, she had the feeling that she'd walked in on an argument clearly not meant for her ears.   
  
"Is she all right?" Asked John. Jo sat down and lit herself a cigarette from George's packet that was lying on the table.   
  
"John," She said carefully, "You remember, before the start of the Merriman/Atkins trial, we were talking about my witnesses, and you speculated as to who had arranged for Charlie Atkins to meet his end after the end of his trial?"   
  
"Vaguely, yes," He replied.   
  
"And do you remember that I said I thought it was more likely to be the daughter rather than the mother?" John took in a deep breath, and a look of dawning realisation crept over his face.   
  
"Was it the daughter who killed Fenner?" He asked quietly.   
  
"Yes," Replied Jo. John immediately stretched out a hand to the phone on his desk, clearly about to put the wheels of justice in motion. But Jo held up a hand. "john, don't. This requires the soft and gentle approach. As Karen put it so succinctly to me in the car park, whilst Yvonne Atkins herself might not have known that her daughter would do something like this, if she discovered that Karen had supplied anyone in authority with the correct name, Karen herself would be history." John winced.   
  
"Good god," Said George in disgust, "If ever there was a woman for getting in over her head, it's her."   
  
"That doesn't help anyone, George," Replied Jo. "don't forget, it wasn't all that long ago that you were in over your head with the secretary of state for trade. Yes, you might have been committing career suicide in the legal way, but you were still heading in that direction." Utterly gob smacked, George didn't say a word. Ignoring the little twinkle in John's eye, Jo said, "That Sergeant who helped me during the Diana Halsey case, Sergeant Bridges, he might be persuaded not to ask too many questions if you steered him in the direction of Lauren Atkins."   
  
"Yes, good idea," replied John, "He directed us to One Way's incriminating e-mails, so I'd say we owe him a favour."   
  
"And you," Said Jo, turning back to George, "Need to learn a thing or two about personal space."   
  
"What on Earth are you talking about?" Asked George, clearly mystified.   
  
"You frightened the life out of Karen, simply by getting too close to her. She didn't say as much, but I think you made her briefly feel as vulnerable as she did with Fenner." George looked aghast.   
  
"Oh," She said, feeling thoroughly guilty. "I didn't think of that."   
  
"So I see," Replied Jo, "Just like you clearly didn't think too hard about whether or not Karen was actually guilty of murder." Turning back to John, she said, "You must impress on Sergeant Bridges, that you cannot under any circumstances reveal your source's name. If her name ended up in the hands of the police, Karen would follow the same path as Fenner. The police would trample all over any promise they might make to keep Karen's name out of it. Let's face it, getting the fourth member of the Atkins family behind bars would be too good an opportunity to miss. Promise me, John, because if you reveal Karen's name so much as once, you'll be signing her death warrant."   
  
"Fine, but this will take a while," Said John, "The bigger I make it, the bigger the police will make it. I will do this quietly and carefully, and in my own time. Is that clear?" neither Jo nor George needed to answer, but George was left with the thought that John might leave informing the police until after he'd had what he wanted from Karen. 


	112. Part One Hundred And Twelve

Part One Hundred and Twelve   
  
  
  
"Sir Ian," Came Lawrence James's harsh voice, abruptly disturbing Sir Ian's mental deliberations. "Have you seen the news in today's Times? I think you ought to read it."  
  
The first sign of Sir Ian's displeasure of being interrupted showed when he squinted in the direction of the unusually flustered man as he tried to switch the train of his thoughts. In the meantime, Lawrence James placed the large newspaper on his desk, over the top of his paperwork, and noisily rustled it open to the relevant page. It was the way he glared at Lawrence James that showed the full impact of the unseemly disturbance by this alien intrusion into Sir Ian's neat and ordered world as symbolised by his desk.   
  
"There, sir, at the bottom of column four," He gesticulated eagerly.  
  
"Thank you, I can read," Came the acid reply.  
  
His eyes flitted their way along the neat columns and right in the bottom right hand corner was the item.  
  
"Prison officer found dead in suspicious circumstances."  
  
Following the discovery yesterday of the murder of James Fenner, Principle Officer at Larkhall Prison, the police are investigating all possible leads as to who was in the vicinity of Epping Forest where his body was found, who may have noticed anything unusual, and who may have seen him. They are also tracing his last known movements on that day and are appealing to anyone to come forward with information."  
  
"Did you see anything about this on the news yesterday, Lawrence?" Sir Ian asked sharply.  
  
"No sir. I took my wife and son out to her parents and we were busy all day. Didn't you notice anything yourself, Sir?" Lawrence James asked anxiously.  
  
Damn the man for asking such a fatuous question. If he had known, he would have said.  
  
"What does this mean for the Department?" he said.  
  
Sir Ian was trying to get his head round this one. At the back of his mind he was aware that a court case was brewing of which he was privy to advance information. He wondered in retrospect what had made him unaccountably diverge from his habitual instinct to pour oil over troubled waters, to sideline all troublemakers and to reward the compliant. He knew that sooner or later, the name of Larkhall Prison would be bandied about in the corridors of power but that there was no need for him to publicly admit knowledge until it became official. Handling information that came to his ears was a large part of the skills that he had acquired over the years. Open government was a contradiction in terms.  
  
And now the man was dead. He felt nothing about the man personally as he had only seen him from a distance when he sat at the back of the Old Bailey and he testified in court in the Atkins/Pilkinton trial. He had that strange sensation that all normal processes, the way he expected himself to conduct his business in this matter were suddenly cut short, his highly developed instinct to prepare for trouble found the source of trouble suddenly removed. It was as if a man, whose leg had been amputated in an operation, still felt the familiar nerve endings and the sensations in his ankle and toes and the feel of the shoe on his foot. He was mentally flinching for no real reason. He was experiencing that very rare feeling of disorientation more than anything because his uncharacteristic refusal to act had somehow removed the problem. This went against all his long experience in the Civil Service.  
  
"For the moment, nothing," Sir Ian said decisively. "There will be the police investigation which may or may not apprehend the criminal. We don't know if some tabloid rag will divulge any scandal against the man's past life."   
  
Sir Ian hesitated a second as the thought struck him that this man's life was wholly in the past, no present or future for him.  
  
"The whole thrust of the civil case will come to nothing as there is nothing more that can be done to the man," He finished.  
  
"We cannot be sure that we are out of the woods, sir," Lawrence James said anxiously.  
  
Sir Ian shut his eyes. That was not the most fortunate choice of words to have been made as it recalled James Fenner's fate. He had to admit to himself that the whole matter was distasteful and unpleasant and the whole matter of the buried body had a sinister flavour about it. He did not want to dwell on it too much as his sudden sense of Man's mortality was quite enough for him to deal with.   
  
"Tomorrow is another day, Lawrence. We have other work to do," Sir Ian said as he carefully folded the newspaper and placed it on the remotest corner of his desk. These words cued in the smoothly operating machinery of power clicking into gear and another normal day unfolding.  
  
DI Sullivan and Ds Greer's white police car drew up outside the front gates of Larkhall Prison. He remembered coming to this dump before and hoped that he would have a more successful outcome this time. They checked in at the gatelodge and were ready to turn the place over. They were part of an enquiry team thrown like a dragnet across several police areas and their chief constable had briefed them that this was a high profile case and to dig up any possible leads and no excuses.  
  
"Can you remember this James Fenner when we were here last time?" DS Greer asked DI Sullivan.  
  
"Not to my knowledge. The only prison officer that I remember was that know all Karen Betts who was Wing Governor," Came the reply in a hard Scottish accent and an edge of anger. He had not forgotten or forgiven the way he was made a fool of when some con died of an allergy due to an overdose of nuts instead of his theory that it was poison and that spiky haired kid was the one in the frame, Shaz Wiley. He had a gut instinct for the criminal type and went at it like a terrier until he got results.   
  
"Miss Betts, I believe we've met before," Came his greeting to a woman who looked slightly ill at ease and nervous and not the very hard, sarcastic dominant woman whom he had remembered.  
  
"We have a room set up for you, the same one as when you came last time," She said with a slightly distracted air.  
  
"Can we have a word with you first in half an hour as we want to question you about the deceased man."  
  
"Sure," Came the reply which betrayed a flicker of unease in her voice. In reality, it was the reference to the way that Jim Fenner was referred to that disturbed her. Added to that, she had her own troubles which the police were not to know of.  
  
"I'll come to the point," DI Sullivan said, stretching himself comfortably in his chair. "We've got the statement alleging that he'd raped you. You're not going to say that you're sorry that he's out of the way, are you?" In his best sarcastic tone underpinned by the need for a bit of personal payback, he started the process of flushing out information to narrow down the possibilities and to apprehend the criminal. Larkhall was on his patch and this was a promising place for his team to start.  
  
"I've locked up criminals for a living for more than eleven years. I'm not about to start to become one at my time of life," Came her stinging reply.   
  
"Just asking. We have to explore all possibilities, don't we DS Greer?"  
  
"Quite," Came Karen's tight smile and her reply that recalled to her a favourite John Deed line that he employed to the likes of Brian Cantwell.  
  
"Do you have any theories as to who might be the killer? After all, you are the Wing Governor."  
  
"Jim Fenner was a long serving prison officer and, inevitably, he came across prisoners over the course of time who took exception to him. More than that, I can't say."  
  
Damn the woman, DI Sullivan thought angrily and he curtly finished the first interview.  
  
"Mr Fenner?" Julie S exclaimed, looking wide eyed. "It was a real shame the way he got done in. Lost our favourite screw, I mean prison officer, haven't we, Ju."  
  
"I remember the time we saw it on the news saying that Larkhall will be a very different place without him. Those were my very words, weren't they, Ju."  
  
This was the prelude to a very frustrating tour of Larkhall where every prisoner had graduated with flying colours from the criminal female finishing school at the art of obfuscating, at suddenly going off the point with irrelevant details and making his brain ache with the effort required to skim through the verbal outpourings for that one chance remark which might give him something to go on. Give him a male prisoner to sink his teeth into and he would be a happier man. DS Greer came to the fore, more and more, in the endless questioning to give him a break.   
  
The prison officers weren't much better with that clodhopping Mrs Hollamby telling the same story as that Miss Barker with her wide open slightly vacant eyes. They might as well have rehearsed their scripts in advance.  
  
"So you are saying that the deceased man…"  
  
"Jim Fenner you are talking about," Mrs Hollamby sniffily interrupted.  
  
"…..Jim Fenner was a pillar of this establishment and that he had absolutely no enemies, either inmates past or present or fellow officers?"  
  
"Of course, there have been some murdering psychopaths who have moved on. Larkhall has a better class of prisoners these days, none of whom have the slightest grudge against him. And all the prison officers have to stand together. You have to as Joe Public doesn't understand as you know from your job," Bodybag finished with a curious mixture of venom and blandishment and an ingratiating smile on her face while her eyes looked in every direction but his.   
  
"You make Larkhall Prison sound like a four star hotel," DI Sullivan replied sarcastically.  
  
"Well we do our best. Don't we?" Came the vacuous reply which prompted the police to move to the next interview.   
  
"Come on, Di," Bodybag said out of earshot. "We've got to report to Her Majesty what we've said to the police. I bet she's delighted that Jim Fenner is no longer around her any more. She's a funny woman, that one, and she never really appreciated him. He'll be a great loss to Larkhall. It seems like the end of an era," She finished reflectively as she couldn't banish from her mind's eye the visual imprint of the tall dark man and his place in the PO's room and his voice echoing in her mind with his wise words of jailcraft which she took to heart many years ago.   
  
The last PO, whose full name he didn't remember, a bad sign for his thought processes, but he could vaguely remember as Selena, spoke in a cool voice, almost too controlled.  
  
"I'm fairly new here and I really didn't know Jim Fenner very well at all. I'm sorry I can't be of more help."  
  
She smiled to herself as she went out the door as it meant that the man whom she'd swiftly figured out as a sexual predator was no longer around and that her sexual tastes which ran in an entirely different direction could be safely concealed behind a glamorous exterior. After all, all lesbians wore trousers, didn't they? She was on the wing that evening and she heard the cheers from the TV room when the news broke but she wasn't saying anything. It meant that her love life was all the safer from the likes of that sleasy man..  
  
After the interview, DI Sullivan slumped in his chair and ran his hands upwards through his hair, a pounding headache temporarily blocking his thought processes.  
  
"We're getting nowhere here, are we?" Came DS Greer's statement of the blindingly obvious.  
  
"We'll have a talk with the Governing Governor, Mr Neil Grayling and then we'll shoot off to the pub. Might as well make up on our subsistence payments and get something out of our investigations."  
  
To begin with, Grayling was as infuriating as the rest of the inhabitants of Larkhall and he came out with the sort of management bullshit that was as infuriating as the lies and excuses of the rest of the inhabitants of Larkhall, both sides of the prison bars.  
  
"Of course, you will know about the recent trial of Tracy Pilkinton better known as Snowball Merriman and her boyfriend Ritchie Atkins who conspired together to blow up the library, me included, as cover for her attempted escape. Ms Pilkinton was an inmate of this establishment and, after the trial, in which Jim Fenner gave evidence for the prosecution, both committed suicide. She has no known family but Ritchie Atkins has family on the outside. Apparently, the Atkins family have a certain notoriety."  
  
At last, the lead they were looking for. DI Sullivan shook Grayling's hand warmly and made their way out of the prison. His instinct in his investigations had been to place more trust in going to the bottom of the organisation with more chance of worming out the truth and leave the boss to the last. After all, his Chief Constable knew sod all about how he did his job but this time, the least likely chance had turned up trumps.   
  
Neil had not slept well for the past week since he had tried to get George on side only to be frustrated by her strange unaccountable desire to make some irrational crusade. He'd had a run of nights where the vision of being interrogated by the man from whom all his power and self esteem flowed, and his cold blue eyes and the scowl on his face banishing him into exile. That worried him as he put everything into his career and, if that were ruined, as Joe Channing had threatened him with, who was he. Everything had changed on that Sunday evening when, in a moment of boredom, he put the television on to distract him from his thoughts.  
  
  
  
Neil Houghton arrived at work on Monday with a spring in his step. He had watched the news the night before and the sober sounding BBC presenter announcing James Fenner's death caused an evil smile to wrap itself round his face. He could do without listening to the sympathetic details as the man was not a constituent of his. It was someone else's problem and not his. He stayed glued to the television clicking onto the latest news from all channels with the delicious feeling welling up inside him. So much for George Channing's would be crusade, was the thought that went round and round in his mind. He reached to the drinks cupboard and poured himself a large measure of whisky and let the alcohol and the feeling of being politically saved warm what passed for his soul.   
  
"Dead men don't talk," He said to himself, as he toasted the unknown murderer who had very conveniently buried a political embarrassment in the safest place that he knew, the grave. The man was an ordinary run of the mill minor functionary in the Prison service and, so long as any 'kiss and tell' stories surfaced in rags like the "News of the World" from some money hungry enemy with a grudge, then he could draw a line under…… Whatever irregularities he may have been guilty of in his lifetime would fade into the past as who reads yesterday's papers? There would be no civil case against area, no tabloid exposure as George had predicted. Everyone holding the reins of power, himself included, could sleep a little more soundly in their beds at night and get on with running the country.  
  
The Cabinet meeting was an unusually pleasant affair. Today's items on the agenda included a 'hot spots and good news' item which caused the less successful ministers to become nervous and apologetic and the more successful to brag of the accomplishments of 'their ministries' in terms that their personal achievements. What was intended to raise concerns before they blew up into major crises operated as an exhibition of self-aggrandisement or alternatively, as a tortuous, verbose exercise in face saving. Each minister looked intently as it came close to his or her turn.  
  
"There is a continuing concern in the matter of the potential bad press due to the scare stories of mobile phones causing brain tumours. Our Department is continuing to collate the latest scientific research and will be available for the mobile phone companies so that they aren't caught short as One way PLC were. The Attorney General tells me that there are no court cases on the horizon but we do not intend to be complacent. On the good side is the 4% increase in the last three months seasonally adjusted figures for arms sales overseas. Now that Robin Cook's so called 'ethical policies' have been discredited." And here Neil broke into a wide smile which others round the table joined in. "Our country is in the position of being one step ahead of the competition."  
  
"Well done, Neil," Came the smile of approval from the head of the table before his cold blue eyes turned to the next in line. "That's what I like to hear. A run of good news……."  
  
Much later, when they touched on the main press stories, the cabinet agreed that the front-page criticisms of the modernisation of the public services demanded a robust rebuttal and for a dedicated team to be set up specifically to influence the press. And the copy of the story on Page 4 of the Times that was left in the Cabinet room was quietly folded up and left for anyone to pick up and read in an idle moment, probably the cleaner. 


	113. Part One Hundred And Thirteen

Part One Hundred And Thirteen   
  
After her fairly harrowing interview with Jo, John and George, Karen went back to work, trying to keep everything smoothly ticking over, and attempting to curtail the swollen imaginations of most of her inmates. Sylvia was outraged because every con who had heard about Fenner was over the moon.   
  
"Couldn't happen to a nicer guy, eh Miss?" Julie Saunders had said, and Karen had been forced to hide a smile. But when she left her desk that afternoon, she knew that there was only one thing she could do. She had given Lauren's name to Jo, and she knew that it would only be a matter of time before Lauren's identity as Fenner's killer was put in to the hands of the police. Above all, Karen needed space from this situation. No longer could she maintain the outward indifference with Yvonne that had kept her going for the last week. Driving over to Yvonne's, Karen knew that putting a temporary hold on their relationship was only the beginning.   
  
Yvonne looked pleased to see her when she opened the door, and Karen felt the nagging weight of guilt, constantly reminding her of what she'd done that morning. When she moved in to the hall, Karen said,   
  
"Yvonne, we need to talk." Seeing that this was definitely something serious, Yvonne led the way back to her lounge.   
  
"Drink?" She said, gesturing at the bottle of scotch on the small sideboard.   
  
"Yes please," Said Karen, knowing that she was going to need it. When they were seated on the sofa, Karen didn't beat around the bush.   
  
"I had quite an interesting little interview this morning," She began, finding some slight amusement in the fact that she knew she was starting to talk like George. "I was called to the chambers of Mr. Justice Deed, where he, Jo Mills and George Channing, thoroughly questioned me as to my part in Fenner's death."   
  
"You what?" Asked Yvonne, totally stunned.   
  
"Yes, not the most enjoyable hour of my life," Replied Karen. "George at least, was utterly convinced that it was me who'd killed Fenner. I don't think I've ever been put through anything so legally harrowing in all the time I've worked both for the prison service and the NHS."   
  
"Did you manage to convince them it wasn't you?"   
  
"I'm still walking free, so yes, I did. But I am not, repeat not, going through anything like that again for something that wasn't my fault." Yvonne was quiet. "I can't do this any more, Yvonne," Karen continued, "I just can't keep up the facade." Yvonne looked worried.   
  
"You're not going to grass on her, are you?" Karen gave her a wry smile.   
  
"No. What would be the point? Besides, wouldn't I be signing my own death certificate in doing such a thing?"   
  
"I can't believe you just said that," Said Yvonne, sounding more hurt than Karen had ever heard her. "This is you we're talking about. You're absolutely right in thinking that grassing up my daughter isn't something I'd ever be able to forgive, but giving you a dose of the Atkins treatment isn't something I'd be likely to consider."   
  
"I'm sorry," Said Karen, truly mollified, "I don't seem to have a sense of judgment that's in tune with everyone else's at the moment. Which is why, I need some space."   
  
"From me you mean, from us?"   
  
"Yes. Yvonne, this is the last thing I ever wanted to do, but I need to sort out how I feel about a lot of things. When I saw you cleaning that gun, I was forcefully reminded of the lengths you would still go to in order to protect what's yours. I don't know if I can handle being involved with someone who can so easily revert to some of her old ways."   
  
"I had to do that!" Yvonne protested vehemently.   
  
"I know," Replied Karen gently, "And as weird as it sounds, I understand why you had to do it. But it's not something that I think I can be around. I thought all my dreams had come true when we realised which team we were batting for, but I can't quite get my head around the rest of it. I need some time away, to find out if I can come to terms with that side of you."   
  
"I'm sorry, sweetheart," Yvonne said quietly, and Karen could hear the tears threatening to appear. "I'm sorry that you've had to go through this as well, and I'm sorry that you've got to do this. Just, promise me one thing. Promise me that when you make your mind up, you'll let me know, because I ain't going anywhere." Reaching forward to give Yvonne a strong, warm hug, Karen said,   
  
"I promise," and after giving Yvonne one last, lingering kiss, she stood up and walked out of the house, away from something that had, for a short time, given her so much happiness.   
  
She drove home, feeling utterly desolate. Yvonne hadn't really deserved that, but Karen knew that she couldn't keep sleeping with Yvonne, at least certainly not for the moment. Was she jumping before she was pushed, she didn't know. She just prayed that the police never got hold of her name as the source of the identity of Fenner's killer. Picking up a copy of The Evening Standard on her way home, Karen was greeted to the sight of a picture of Fenner, one they'd obviously obtained from Fenner's personnel file.   
  
"I hope you know what I've just done for you, you bastard," Karen found herself saying to the picture as she let herself in to her flat. God, that really was the first sign of total insanity, talking to a newsprint picture of one's rapist. She flung the paper on the sofa, with Fenner's picture facing upwards, as if to remind her why she'd just added an extra bit of misery to Yvonne's already overburdened shoulders. Seeing the message light winking on her answerphone, she pressed the button, only to be greeted by John's voice.   
  
"Karen, it's John Deed. I simply wondered how you were after this morning. I'll try you again later." Thinking that some control over the situation wouldn't do her any harm, Karen read the number on her caller display that had accompanied the message, and rang him back.   
  
"John Deed?" Came the relaxed yet professional masculine tones.   
  
"It's Karen Betts," She replied. "You called."   
  
"So I did," He said, sounding pleased to hear from her. "How are you?"   
  
"I've had better days," She said, sitting down on the sofa and turning the paper over so that she wouldn't have to look at Fenner's face. "I've got a wing full of inmates who couldn't be more pleased at the untimely death of one of their officers, even though for some of them it will mean a few less turning of blind eyes and privileges. I spent most of the morning being interrogated by someone who could audition for the KGB," At which point John couldn't help grinning, "And I've just ended what promised to be the best relationship I've ever had, and in doing so, made Yvonne even more miserable than she already is."   
  
"That's sudden," Commented John.   
  
"What was I supposed to do," Karen said disgustedly. "I've landed her daughter in more trouble than she'll know what to do with. I could hardly go on sleeping with her under those circumstances. But, you didn't phone me to hear about my bloody awful day."   
  
"Well, partly I did," He said, his liking for this outspoken, down to Earth woman not in the least abated. "But there is one other matter that still requires some attention, that of why you chose not to tell anyone." Karen went quiet for a moment.   
  
"Does this absolutely have to be now?" She asked, knowing that another round of questioning would finish her off altogether. "Because I really don't think I've got the energy for it. I'll take George on any day you like, but twice in one day is asking a little too much." John laughed.   
  
"You're forgetting that I was once married to her, so I know exactly where you're coming from, though you certainly gave her a fair run for her money. I was impressed."   
  
"I bet part of you enjoyed that, didn't you," Said Karen, unable to keep the small smile out of her voice.   
  
"It did hold a certain attraction," He found himself admitting, "But the next round won't be with either Jo or George. I'm not planning to take what you tell me any further, unless I am presented with something that I am by law obliged to pass on. I would simply like to understand." Tangling with the fiery Ms George Channing was one thing, thought Karen, trying to maintain her defences in battle with this man, would be quite another.   
  
"Okay," She said carefully, "Though quite what I'm letting myself in for, I don't know."   
  
"Come and see me after court on Wednesday afternoon," He said, "But try to leave the armour behind, because I don't think you'll need it."   
  
All day on Wednesday, Karen couldn't help agonising about the impending interview. On Monday, she hadn't been given much notice, and therefore hadn't had time to worry too much about what was coming. But today was different. She kept coming up with questions that John might ask her, and spent too much of her time attempting to construct plausible answers. The Police had been in to see Grayling on the Monday, and had been crawling over the whole place ever since, talking to all and sundry about Fenner's popularity with his fellow officers. They'd expressed a perfunctory interest in Karen, mainly because of her tentative rape allegation, but she hadn't held their attention for long. Di and Sylvia had unhelpfully both suggested that an ex-con might be to blame, though the police had dismissed this possibility as very unlikely. That's all they knew, thought Karen in disgust. When the clock finally wended its way round to the time she had to leave, she stood for a while, staring at her self in the mirror in the Ladies', taking particular care over making up her face. Even after a hard day's work, argumentative strategy wasn't the only area in which she could give Georgia Channing a run for her money. Splashing on some perfume, and pulling a brush through her hair, she at last felt strong, capable, as if she could hold her own in the verbal fracas she was about to walk in to.   
  
When she walked through the doors of the ancient court building, it was almost deserted. But then, it was after five in the afternoon, long after the court had adjourned for the day. She climbed the marble staircase, and traversed the long, endless corridor to John's chambers. She knocked lightly on the sturdy, oak door, and he called,   
  
"Come in." When she pushed the door open, she saw that he was seated behind his desk, thumbing through an enormous dust-covered tome, and clearly immersed in paperwork. He looked up and smiled.   
  
"Hello," He said, standing up and moving towards her. "How are you?"   
  
"I love my job more than any other job I've ever done, but a combination of riotous inmates and unco-operative officers do take their toll."   
  
"Would you like a drink?" He asked, which was the most welcome question she'd had all day. Pouring them both a scotch, he said, "Have you always worked in the prison service?"   
  
"Only for twelve years or so," Said Karen, sitting down on one end of the sofa. "I was a nurse before that."   
  
"What made you move from one cash-strapped organisation to another?"   
  
"The money's better," She said succinctly. "And I suppose I came in to the job with the same naivete as every other officer who thinks they can make a difference."   
  
"And do you?" He asked, handing her the glass.   
  
"Not really," She replied dully, "Change, or at least real, significant change, requires financial backing and political interest that most cabinet ministers simply can't be bothered to support. So, we muddle through with what we've got, which results in overcrowding, an increase in re-offending rates and a serious shortfall in any form of rehabilitation."   
  
"Well, if they keep appointing cabinet ministers like the current Secretary of State for Trade, then nothing will ever get better." He joined her, sitting at the other end of the sofa. Spying an ashtray on the coffee table, Karen lit up.   
  
"I'm sure I know far more women who smoke than men," Said John, a slight note of teasing in his tone.   
  
"I do give up periodically," Karen replied.   
  
"That's what both Jo and George keep telling me," He said, "But I don't seem to see any sign of it."   
  
"The last time I gave up was before I was raped. Mark, the man I was seeing at the time persuaded me that giving up was a good idea, but I don't seem to have had any great incentive since."   
  
"Tell me why you didn't inform anyone about Fenner's death," He said, knowing that they had to revisit this sooner or later. Karen took a long drag and said,   
  
"I was so shocked when Lauren said that's what she'd done. I had absolutely no idea that she was thinking of doing something like this, and neither did Yvonne. I think she felt like she was being forced to revisit that part of her life which she thought she'd left behind. Lauren didn't look entirely sane, as if she was high on something, but she wasn't."   
  
"That's what killing does for some people," Said John quietly, "It's almost a sexual arousal for some of them."   
  
"It was obvious she'd shot him, but other than that, I really don't know what happened," And John could see that she was telling the truth. "I'm not sure how much more I can tell you, without implicating Yvonne, which isn't something that even I'm stupid enough to do." John stood up and began pacing.   
  
"I'll save you the trouble," He said. "If I know anything of Yvonne Atkins' reputation, she probably disposed of as much evidence as possible, which almost certainly included the cleaning and getting rid of the gun."   
  
"Spot on," Said Karen dryly.   
  
"Are you seriously telling me that you watched her do all this?" he asked, the level of incredulity exponentionally increasing.   
  
"What was I supposed to do?" Asked Karen, her voice rising to keep up with his. "Whilst I realise it isn't much of an excuse, I think I was in shock. As far as I knew, Yvonne had left all reminders of her former life behind, the day she left Larkhall." This wasn't strictly true, but Karen wasn't about to split hairs. "When I eventually returned home that night, I must have looked at the phone a thousand times, desperately wanting to tell you, or Jo or George, anyone, but I couldn't. Yvonne needed me to at least make the pretence of being strong for her, which partially meant not landing her daughter behind bars. As Yvonne said to me on Monday, giving her daughter's name to the police isn't something she'd ever be able to forgive, and I'm not in a hurry to give Yvonne an excuse to get herself a life sentence. She assured me that even if I did do something like that, she wouldn't be likely to consider giving me a dose of what she calls the Atkins justice, but I didn't and don't want to give her a reason to even think about it."   
  
"Which very neatly brings me to my next point," John said, leaning on the edge of his desk, facing her. "I'd have thought, considering the recent trial you were involved in, that you might have been once bitten twice shy with regards to an Atkins."   
  
"Really," Said Karen bitterly, "And I suppose that you've never, not once in your whole life, made the wrong decision regarding another woman. I suppose that it's been your well-deserved privilege to always sleep with the right person, to never become involved with someone who has at the very least some sort of criminal intentions." His face was a picture, the eyes moving rapidly, and a clear realisation crossing his profile.   
  
"Have I struck a chord?" Karen couldn't help asking. John rolled his eyes at her.   
  
"You've got a level of sarcasm to rival George's," He said, "But to answer your question, yes, I did once become emotionally and sexually involved with someone who almost managed to get me arrested. Lady Franchesca Rochester, separated wife of Sir Ian Rochester." Then, seeing a look of vague recognition on Karen's face, he said, "Yes, the insufferable civil servant from the Lord Chancellor's Department who attempts to derail me at every turn. He wasn't amused when I had an affair with his wife, but it didn't last. However, after a year or so away from her, we met by chance, and things began getting interesting again. Through numerous protestations to the contrary from her, I discovered that she and her cousin, who she was also sleeping with, were living off the proceeds from a soft porn empire. The part which almost put me in a cell, was an off shore account in my name, holding yet more proceeds from lap dancing clubs and various other such enterprises. I of course, knew absolutely nothing of this account, and luckily for me, it was speedily proved that I had nothing to do with it. So yes, I have been there and done that, and am not in a hurry to repeat the experience." Karen stood up and began walking round this stately yet comfortable room.   
  
"That sounds pretty similar to me and Fenner," She said, eventually standing in front of one of the tall windows with her back to him. "His act was so convincing," She said bitterly. "Time and time again he managed to make me believe his never-ending stream of stories. He'd always make his act all the more believable by saying, you know I love you, don't you Karen, and it always worked." John could hear the bitter threat of tears in her voice, and he had an urge to comfort her, but he simply listened. "You know, he even came out with that old line after he'd raped me."   
  
"How did you feel when you found out he was dead?" John asked, gently approaching her, but keeping George's intrusion of her personal space on Monday in mind.   
  
"I don't know," Said Karen, still keeping her face averted from him, now that the tears were coursing down her cheeks, the tension of the last ten days finally catching up with her. "I knew I ought to feel relieved, that he could never do what he'd done to me and countless others, to anyone, ever again. But it's not quite as simple as that, is it. Much as I'm loathe to admit it, I did love him. Once, before Virginia O'Kane was killed and before I discovered he was sleeping with Maxi Purvis, I loved him, and I can't forget that. I should hate and despise him, considering everything I know about him. But even now, even after everything that's happened, there's still a part of me that remembers what it was like to love and to be loved by him." John very carefully laid a hand on her shoulder, and when she didn't resist, he turned her round to face him. He was seeing the vulnerable side of Karen Betts now, the side of her that needed holding, comforting and looking after. Ever since he'd read the precise details of her rape allegation, he'd wondered if this might not be the reason why she was so hesitant to pursue a case against Fenner. Slowly, giving her plenty of time to retreat, he put his arms round her, giving her the feeling of a drowning swimmer who has suddenly found a rock they can cling to. She hated letting her guard down in front of him like this, but his hard, warm chest provided a safe, solid presence that told her it was perfectly okay to cry. He gently ran his fingers through her hair, and briefly thought that she was the quietest woman to cry that he'd ever met.   
  
"That's what you were so desperate to tell me when I came to see you last week, wasn't it," He said quietly. She looked up.   
  
"Do you have any idea just how much I wanted to?" She said, attempting to calm down. "But then they do say that the urge to confess is uncommonly strong, even when all the confession is likely to do is to bring no end of trouble down on one's head." He smiled, thinking of the many times he'd been forced to confess his infidelity to either Jo or George. When her tears eventually dried, she stayed close to him, taking an enormous amount of comfort from being held by him. When she finally moved away from him, she said,   
  
"I'm sorry, that isn't something I usually let anyone witness."   
  
"You should," He said gently, "It's nothing to be ashamed of."   
  
"And I've got mascara on your shirt," She said, gesturing to the tell tale black streaks.   
  
"It won't be the first time," He said, looking down at the offending marks. A little while later when he walked out with her to her car, Karen felt lighter than she had done since Fenner's death. She felt like she'd manage to eradicate some of the disease that had been inside her for far too long. As he watched her unlock the car door, he said,   
  
"Would you like to have dinner with me?" She looked up, only slightly surprised.   
  
"Yes, that'd be nice," She said, sliding behind the wheel. Agreeing a time to pick her up on Friday evening, John watched her drive away, feeling that initial, inexorable excitement that always preceded a conquest. 


	114. Part One Hundred And fourteen

Part One Hundred and Fourteen   
  
Yvonne's bedroom was almost entirely enveloped in blackness except for the tiny bedside light turned down to its lowest. The huddled shape hidden under the quilt was almost impossible to distinguish and Yvonne felt lost in the darkness where she wanted to be. The house was so quiet that the loud ticking of the clock could be heard very distinctly.   
  
It was only in the safety and isolation of the deep impenetrable space of her bedroom that Yvonne could let the tears stream down her face and the feelings of grief could overwhelm her. It was at moments like these that she was least like an Atkins, being able to shed that cool hard façade that only those closest to her had glimpses of. The one saving grace these days was that only Lauren was around her and she had more space to cry in than before she went to prison. She didn't have the likes of Charlie and the woman that she used to be telling her that she looked like a monkey's arse if she was seen in public with tear marks running down her face. She knew now that before she went to Larkhall, she had had no one to turn to for that instinctive generosity that she knew was a quality that no one should despise or confuse with weakness. Curiously enough, her time in Larkhall had helped her to make that emotional jump with all the other women around who looked after each other when one of them was feeling down. Every woman worth her salt that she had ever known who was locked up in prison with her, acted that way with unthinking human decency.  
  
She had hoped against hope over these last days that nothing would come out of Lauren's mad act, that no one would discover the crime, if she cared to call it that. For the first time in her life, the word 'crime' had an ugly sound. She had worked so hard to get Lauren to hold it together and to stop her going down the weird self-destructive route that Charlie and Ritchie had been capable of. Lauren's welfare had taken up all her emotional energies so that she hadn't given time for anything else and she had taken for granted Karen's help to keep Lauren on the straight and narrow, even to going upstairs and having a quiet word with her. She feared now that she might have overcompensated towards Lauren like an Atkins mother does and had taken Karen for granted.   
  
It felt like eternity that she was shut out in the cold and the dark with no hope, no future.   
  
Fresh sobs racked her body as the events of the past days flashed through her brain, replaying over and over again despite her wish to forget it and everything that was going on in her life. Time more than anything else in her life had no meaning.   
  
Lauren sat quietly downstairs. She had no inclination to go out and, though she had brought a fresh set of troubles down on the Atkins family, her place was to be around Mum. She distracted herself by leafing through the same crappy magazine which she had read for the twentieth time featuring the same sun tanned, fake golden haired mindless bimbo that always angered her. What do you do when you are a dark brunette with brains? There was something in the magazine which told her that she didn't fit into this conventional world that was being offered to her on a gilt platter.   
  
Trigger nuzzled himself against her knee, wagging his tail and his big brown eyes sensing that his mistress was troubled. Animals and children always knew instinctively when something was wrong even if they did not know what it was.  
  
It was that spark of self-preservation that rescued Yvonne when she was at her lowest point as it always did, her ultimate strength that alone marked her out as not being an Atkins. She suddenly felt at her most submerged in being buried in the depths of her bed and had a desperate drive to get out of here into the real world, as she was doing neither herself nor Lauren any good lying here stewing.  
  
"Yvonne. Hey, come in," Cassie greeted her as an unexpected ring at the door.   
  
"The house sounds bleeding quiet," Yvonne remarked.  
  
"Roisin's taken the kids to the pictures. I would have gone along but I feel dead on my feet after a bad day at work and I've got a lousy headache. Niamh offered to tuck me into bed but I went for the settee instead." She gestured to the quilt, which had been displaced, and the settee, which she had been lying on, the packet of 'Anadin extra' and a mug of water on a side table next to it.   
  
"No rest for the wicked," Yvonne said nonchalantly without thinking too much about the expression and then wincing slightly at its connotations.  
  
"You look pretty rough," Cassie said rather tactlessly. She had had a rough day at work and wasn't feeling in the mood to watch every word.  
  
"Thanks for the bleeding compliment," Yvonne snapped. "I'll say the same to you sometime."  
  
"I'm sorry, Yvonne. You've caught me at a bad time. I've had too many brain dead idiots to deal with," Cassie offered in a more conciliatory tone. This reasonableness was only skin deep as one of Cassie's failings was that illness made her new found maturity and flexibility go out the window and made her revert to being self centred and short tempered.   
  
"Being a mother of a daughter who's killed a prison officer, so that it hits the front pages of the national papers and feeling like it's only a matter of time before the Old Bill comes sniffing around isn't my idea of having a ball. Being dumped by your girlfriend doesn't exactly help much either," Yvonne reared up, almost subconsciously wanting a confrontation as one way of dealing with her feelings.  
  
"Hey, Yvonne, I'm really sorry to hear about that. What on earth happened?" Cassie said with genuine concern, her more mature side of her personality starting to be engaged.  
  
"Karen doesn't want to deal with the fact that Lauren killed Fenner. I didn't want any of that. I hadn't the slightest idea that she had this crazy idea of stalking Fenner and then killing him. Soon as she waltzed in through the door and told me what she'd done, I had to clean everything up, the gun, Lauren's clothes, the car, the lot. If you mess up on something like this, the shit will hit the fan and Lauren would be nicked. It won't happen to Lauren, not if I can help it."  
  
"And how on earth did you think Karen felt about it?" Cassie asked Yvonne with an incredulous edge which Yvonne thought totally patronising. She was back to being confrontational again.  
  
"There was no time but to act fast. I thought Karen would have understood that you have to deal with the emergency first before anything else," Yvonne snapped.  
  
"For Christ's sake, grow up!" Cassie exploded. How on earth did Yvonne think that Karen, the Karen Betts who is a Wing Governor of a prison and had been upholding the law, would catch Yvonne half way through a typical Atkins quick cover up and would nonchalantly go along with it because she was starry eyed in love with her.  
  
"Look here, I did the same with Roisin as you have done with Karen. I had this mad idea of siphoning off money from the company accounts and thought I could get away with it. I persuaded Roisin to go along with it and, if she hadn't been madly in love with me," And here Cassie gave off a self satisfied narcissistic smile at her awareness of her own charms, "she would have had no hand in it. When we were caught, I had to go through so much of a guilt trip from her, and rightly. I couldn't see it at the time and that's why I'm putting you straight so you don't mess up the same way that I did."  
  
"In case it might have escaped your mind, darling," and here the genuine Yvonne sarcastic thrust, not a term of endearment, embroidered the word. "It was Lauren who killed Fenner, not me and I had no hand in it."  
  
"Apart from clearing up any incriminating evidence, you're right," Cassie retorted, the pain from her headache reaching new heights of agony. "The difference between Roisin and I as we were then and you and Karen as you are now," and Cassie paused for reflection to check that she had got the tortuous sentence right, "is that we were locked up in the same cell even if we were split up some of the time. We didn't have choices in our personal space while you and Karen have. The trouble is that, emotionally, Karen doesn't see what Lauren did in the same way that you do."  
  
The two women glared at each other as they paused, as if in an old fashioned naval battle where two fighting galleons had hurled all their ammunition at each other, the shot lockers were empty and there was nothing to do but think venomous thoughts at each other as substitute lethal weapons as they both did right now.  
  
"You have to give Karen some space, for how long, you can't say and neither, I suspect can Karen," Cassie urged patiently, struggling to be reasonable.  
  
"Thanks for being bleeding Marge Proops. Anyway, I can see I've come round at the wrong time. I'm off."   
  
And Yvonne exited and Cassie made her way back to the security blanket of her quilt and reached for two more tablets.   
  
"Nikki Wade," came the familiar, well modulated voice that brought back to Yvonne such intense nostalgic feelings of closeness that none of Charlie's old friends could conjure up. She had known them for years and now they kept their distance. After her bust up with Cassie and Roisin being out for the evening, Nikki was her last hope. She had phoned up Nikki on her mobile after having driven aimlessly around and had cooled down a bit. She was stuck in the middle of nowhere and she was getting nowhere fast.   
  
"Nikki, I need to see you. It's sort of personal stuff and I could really do with your help and advice."   
  
Yvonne amazed herself as she heard her own voice in instant recall. Perhaps the Yvonne Atkins of old would never have talked that way. She would have turned it over in her own mind and stewed in her own worries and suffered. Of course, no one around her at that time would have picked up the slightest trace of these worries. That wasn't like our Eevie, was it?  
  
"Sure, no time like the present. Why don't you come over tonight to the club?" Nikki's split second judgement told her that this was serious.   
  
"Give me half an hour and I'll be over."   
  
Yvonne's car swung round in an arc and scrunched to a halt with a screech of tyres on the loose gravel in the car park at the back of the club. Out of breath, she stumbled through the front doors of the one place that, in the past, had made her nervous. After all, it's just another club, isn't it.  
  
She greeted Yvonne with a dazzling smile and a big hug and a peck on her cheek that was so Nikki and gestured her to a side room. The girl behind the bar recognised the woman who came into the club and cynically concluded that she might be Nikki's new bird. This older woman looked the hard and dominating type for those who fancied them. She knew better than to make a joke about it as Nikki drew a very precise line between what she would tolerate from someone who worked for her and Trish and what she wouldn't. Nikki was responsible for hiring and firing staff and had a very blunt way of expressing herself and any barmaid who seriously transgressed was out on her ear.  
  
  
  
Nikki took one look at Yvonne's drawn face which had noticeably aged in comparison with the glowing serene law abiding Yvonne who was asking her to talk to Helen so that Fenner could be nailed the legal way. It spelt trouble when she recalled the dramatic and unexpected headlines of Fenner's death and the sight of Yvonne's clearly troubled mind.  
  
"I'd have had this place decked out with balloons and streamers to celebrate Fenner getting what he deserved only what does one less bastard screw in this world mean to the women who come to this club?" Nikki joked as she poured Yvonne a drink.  
  
Yvonne grimaced. The joke was well intended but her nerves were stretched wire taut which made her more aggressive than normal.  
  
"You're not telling me that I killed Fenner, Nikki?" she asked Nikki slightly aggressively.  
  
"No, you're too smart for that or the body would never have turned up," Nikki cut off the potential argument before it could get going. "But that's why you wanted to see me, isn't it," And Nikki laid a hand on her shoulder.   
  
That gesture brought back to her the time that they had joked about Yvonne 'turning lezzie' and Nikki's semi joking mock sexual proposition in the brief halcyon days when they had really run G Wing when the screws had organised the 'mass sick in.' This time, this was the gesture of affection that she needed and she settled back into her chair and smiled for the first time.  
  
"You don't miss much, Nikki. I'd better tell you the truth. I've got to talk to someone about it and you're a close friend who I know will listen to me."  
  
Nikki pricked up her ears. Surely, Karen was the first person she would go to. After all, what are lovers for though good friends sometimes had the advantage of being detached from the situation. She could have done with someone to whom she could have talked about her love for Helen to when she was stuck inside Larkhall.   
  
"You tell it how it is from the very beginning."   
  
Yvonne took a swig from her drink and the occasion rapidly assembled her conflicting thoughts that had jarred up against themselves into order.  
  
"Last time I saw you, Karen and I were going to nail Fenner the legal way and Karen had got two red hot barristers on the job…….."  
  
"You've changed, Yvonne. The Yvonne Atkins I knew would have had Fenner die very painfully given half a chance," Smiled Nikki.  
  
"I've changed but Lauren hasn't. That's the trouble," Yvonne's very throaty, choked up voice told Nikki everything.  
  
"So it was Lauren who murdered Fenner?" Nikki asked gently.   
  
"Yeah. I caught her coming back waving that bloody gun around looking as if she'd been snorting Bolivian marching powder and told me and Karen straight off what she'd done. We'd had one of the best days in our lives till she burst in," Yvonne's words struggled out of her mouth.  
  
"Did you have any idea about what Lauren was up to till then?" Nikki questioned reluctantly. Her tones expressed all the delicacy of touch that she could summon up.   
  
Yvonne shook her head decisively and looked down at the table in silence. Nikki knew instinctively to leave off the questions for the moment.   
  
"Nikki, there's a call for you." as the sudden racket of the phone disturbed the silence.  
  
"Can you take the name and phone number and tell whoever it is that I'll phone back as soon as I can," Nikki's sharp edged voice and glare was directed at her unfavourite barmaid.  
  
"No don't go, Yvonne," She added as Yvonne went to stand up with the obvious intention of leaving and not getting in the way of her work. Right now, the last thing she wanted was to blow it with Nikki after her visit to Cassie had gone so spectacularly wrong. "I'll phone back only when I'm good and ready and not before."   
  
"So you don't get to pick up your medal for bumping off Fenner?" Nikki's joke drew a wan smile from Yvonne.   
  
"Not this time, Nikki, for once in my life."  
  
"So where does Karen come into it, Yvonne?"  
  
Yvonne drew in a deep breath and inhaled cigarette smoke as her device for working her way round to verbalising what was most emotionally painful.  
  
"Karen wants some space from me," Yvonne's short sentence concealed a multitude of pain and she stopped.  
  
"Is that what she wants to do or what you want to do?" came the gentle question, as soft as that of a slowly falling leaf on an autumn day.   
  
"Not me, Nikki. As for Karen, I don't know. She had been given the third degree by the two barristers I told you about and the judge who was due to hear the case. They believed in her and wanted to see Fenner behind bars for raping Karen and for all the shit that happened to every woman who was at Larkhall. They're all decent people and they felt let down and that's the trouble. It's not like going up before the screws and being banged up by some bastard who doesn't give a shit. The two women really cared in their different ways. Anyway, Karen can't believe that I'm not the Yvonne Atkins of old and that I've put my past behind me. I'm not sure she knows what she feels," Yvonne added earnestly.   
  
Nikki held her glass meditatively between her long shapely fingers. She could see it from both sides but it didn't make it any easier to put it into words that she could say to Yvonne.   
  
"Yvonne, would it help if I explained what happened when Helen and I split up once. I think it might help you."  
  
"Helen like Karen is or was Wing Governor. They are used to being on the right side of the bars." she made a tentative start, feeling her way by touch and intuition. "You know well enough that a screw ending up on the wrong side of the prison bars is in big trouble if that screw is the one who is used to carrying the keys. Take Lorna Rose for example. I made it feel too dangerous for Helen in the way that I landed on her doorstep and she didn't have the choice whether or not I was going to call on her. Helen had to smuggle me back into Larkhall the very night that everything kicked off at Bodybag's party. Of course, I had to miss out on the sight of Bodybag prancing around out of her head on E's."   
  
Yvonne smiled broadly at Nikki's recall of one of the highlights of her life.   
  
"At the time though, Helen freaked out as, going through her mind was the fear that she was, quote, harbouring a criminal, unquote, on the very night that we slept together. Crystal did time for harbouring Denny Blood and Shell Dockley. When she found out that I'd threatened to stick a bottle into Fenner's guts, or at least made out that I was about to, that helped finish it between us though I didn't know at the time. I was standing up for Helen the same way that Lauren was standing up for you, and Ritchie and the rest of us. That doesn't make it any easier for Karen. I have a pretty good idea through Helen how Karen is feeling."  
  
"So what do I do, Nikki?" Yvonne asked her and the world around her, emotion choking her voice.  
  
"You can't force her to come back to you, Yvonne. It doesn't work out that way. You have to see that. Helen and I will be here for you whenever you want us. I can promise you this much."  
  
Tears came to Yvonne's eyes but for once in her life, she made no attempt to brush them away.  
  
"Your word is worth more than most people's word sworn on the Bible," Yvonne declared emotionally.  
  
They drifted along for a while chatting about everyday matters when the barmaid returned and both Nikki and Yvonne realised that Nikki had work to do. She looked at the time and it was getting late. Lauren would be worrying about her.   
  
"I'll take you up on this sometime. I'd better be going and thanks," Yvonne got to her feet and her smile and tone of voice being more relaxed than she had been for days ever since the darkness fell when Fenner was killed.  
  
"Night night, Yvonne," Nikki called out to her as if she were in the cell next to hers at Larkhall and not to her house somewhere in London. 


	115. Part One Hundred And Fifteen

Part One Hundred And Fifteen   
  
On the Friday morning, Karen sat at her desk, feeling a tingling sense of anticipation. She knew that she probably shouldn't be feeling like this, but the knowledge that in a few hours time, she would be doing something as normal as having dinner with someone who was fast becoming a very good friend, was amazing. After all that had gone on over the last two months, and especially the last two weeks, she needed to do something normal, something random, something that couldn't possibly bring her any more trouble. Ever since the beginning of Ritchie and Snowball's trial, and her getting together with Yvonne, Karen realised that she hadn't really spent any time with anyone who didn't in some way have any connection with her job. Yvonne, despite all the wonderful times they'd had together, had once been part of her job. But to do something as normal as have dinner with someone who wasn't in the least connected with what she did every day, that would be good. John had made her feel safe the other day when she'd cried on his shoulder. A minute part of her was thoroughly ashamed at having done that with him, but the rest of her knew that it didn't matter. Maybe this was one male friend she could have without having to keep up any kind of an act. She was mulling this over, whilst twirling a biro between her fingers, when a sound from her computer told her she had mail. Swiveling the chair round to face the screen, she read the message that had landed in her in-box.   
  
From: Georgia.Channing@sopwithandpartners.co.uk   
  
To: Karen.Betts@larkhall.hmprisonservice.gov.uk   
  
Date: October 17th 2003.   
  
Subject: Apology   
  
Karen,   
  
I feel I owe you an explanation, as to why I assumed you were responsible for James Fenner's murder. First of all, let me say that I should never have jumped to such a conclusion. Having read and discussed with you everything that James Fenner put you through, it struck me as perfectly understandable that you might have had quite enough and wanted rid of him. When I spent those few hours with you, as my punishment for contempt of court, I saw a different side to you. I saw the confident, emotionally and professionally strong, utterly together side of you that had absolutely no problem in keeping Fenner in his place. I have never ever doubted anything you've said as regards what Fenner did to you, but seeing the amount of anger you displayed when you tore a strip off him for disobeying an order, set my belief in you in concrete. As has been revealed by the transcript of your conversation with Jo, and by some of the things you've said or not said to me, it's pretty obvious that you haven't even begun to deal with what Fenner did to you. This has almost certainly been exacerbated by the fact that you've had to work with him day in day out. When I heard that he'd been killed, I think I simply put all these conclusions together, and assumed that everything had finally got to you. I clearly should have known better, because you are far stronger than that. Unlike me, you don't lose control on a regular basis. I think I was so angry with you on Monday, because I felt slightly betrayed that you hadn't trusted me enough to tell me, which I do know sounds utterly ridiculous. However, you stood up to my barrage incredibly well, and I have to say that I was quietly impressed. This brings me to the other matter on which I owe you an apology. I had absolutely no idea that my method of attempting to wear you down would have frightened you the way it did. Had I spared a thought to how you might take what was clearly an intrusion of your personal space, I would never have done what I did. I'm sorry for introducing yet one more stress factor in to what was already an extremely fraught situation.   
  
Now, what I am about to say may appear to be unduly intrusive and presumptuous. I suspect you have managed to work out for yourself that John is attracted to you. If you should ever find yourself being pursued by John, I would advise you to steer clear. Emotionally, he will hurt you, as he has hurt every other woman he's ever known. I would simply urge you not to attempt to get too close to him. Just, please, be careful.   
  
If you should ever require my help in the future, you know where to find me.   
  
Good luck,   
  
George  
  
Karen read the message through three times. She hadn't expected anything remotely like this from George, and she felt incredibly touched. In the small amount of time that Karen had got to know George, she had realised that George wasn't one for apologising for anything. It must have taken a great deal of effort for her to do this. George hadn't owed her an explanation of any sort, yet she'd still felt the need to provide one. Clicking on the icon for Reply, Karen sent the following message.   
  
From: Karen.Betts@larkhall.hmprisonservice.gov.uk   
  
To: Georgia.Channing@sopwithandpartners.co.uk   
  
Date: October 17th 2003.   
  
Subject: Re: Apology   
  
George,   
  
Apology well and truly accepted, though it really wasn't necessary. I wanted to tell you, I really did. You all but managed to drag it out of me when you saw me the day after it happened. But for obvious reasons, you know why I couldn't. You're right, I haven't really begun to deal with what Fenner did to me, but maybe now that he's gone I can. If the situation hadn't been quite so grave, I'd have thoroughly enjoyed sparring with you the way I did. In an odd kind of way, it gave me an outlet, a way to get rid of some of the tension that had been building up ever since I found out he was dead. As for my reaction to your very insistent questioning, please don't worry about it. Yes, I did feel briefly threatened, which I know was completely irrational. But I think I know you well enough, to know that you would never have made me feel like that intentionally.   
  
Regarding what you said about John, warning received and understood.   
  
No hard feelings,   
  
Karen  
  
Clicking on Send, Karen felt that this was certainly one matter that had been satisfactorily dealt with. She'd liked George, the mixture of arrogance, poise and sensitivity making her one of the most interesting people Karen had ever met. George was a quandary, a puzzle, something she would have liked the chance to work out and understand. Also, Karen knew enough to realise that George's warning had been given with the best intentions, and whilst she had some slight inkling of what may take place between herself and John tonight, Karen wasn't about to dismiss the well-chosen words entirely.   
  
Having informed those who needed to know that she had a dentist appointment that afternoon, Karen switched off her computer at one thirty and made her way thankfully out of the prison. For two and a half days, she resolved not to think once about any inmate or officer, and woe-betide anyone who caused a disturbance that required her presence over the weekend. She wanted nothing to do with either Larkhall or any of its inhabitants. After having her hair cut, she went home, and lay in a sensually scented bath, listening to happy music and giving every inch of her body due care and attention in preparation for any possibility that the evening might provide. As she sipped from a glass of scotch on the rocks, which was perched on the corner of the bath, she thought about Yvonne. Should she, Karen, really be preparing herself for a possible seduction attempt by another person? No, probably not, but she tried to justify herself by thinking that some normality in her life might help her to make sense of the rest of it. She could hear the happy country music from her lounge, and it lightened her soul. Thinking about Yvonne wasn't going to do her any good right now. Yvonne didn't need to know about anything that may or may not happen with John, and in this case, what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her in the least. After an hour of soaking in warm, aromatic bubbles, she finally felt fairly relaxed. Larkhall and all its pervading atmosphere had been thoroughly washed away, and she was forced to admit that she felt ready for anything. Drying off, she stood in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom, critically examining her entire body. In spite of the serious lack of sleep she'd endured over the last couple of weeks, she was looking good. Her breasts were full and firm, her skin slightly flushed from the heat of the bath. Still standing in front of the mirror, she massaged skin food in to her torso, feeling the cream slide over her skin like a woman's delicate fingers. She couldn't help thinking that she made a pretty stunning sight, with her soft, supple skin, her long, endless legs, and every conceivable hair perpetually banished from her body. She moved to stand in front of the wardrobe, unable to decide on what to wear. Sexy but subtle was clearly the order of the day. This resulted in a smart black skirt, with a slit up the back to show off her still tanned legs. To accompany this, she selected the red silk shirt that had so inflamed Ritchie's passion all that time ago. She didn't know why she picked on the same clothes she'd worn for Ritchie Atkins, except that it was a private indication that she was clearly going up in the world. Standing again in front of the mirror, she applied her make up, also trying to keep the emphasis on subtle. When she was finally satisfied with her appearance, she splashed on some of her favourite perfume, and slipped her feet in to a pair of simple black high heels. Going in to the kitchen to rinse her whisky glass, she felt a thrill of excitement in wondering what the night would bring. 


	116. Part One Hundred And Sixteen

Part One Hundred and Sixteen   
  
  
  
John looked at the reflection of himself in his mirror and glanced up and down. What looked back at him pleased him to survey his naturally debonair good looks. Although they were ageing slightly, his neatly cut, thick greying hair and intense blue eyes made him no less attractive to the opposite sex. This marked him out in the singles game as the archetypal Older Man. This was a role that he had slipped into unconsciously though, inside, his drives and feelings felt the same as his younger self, passionate for life in all its forms and this welling forth of energy kept him ahead of the game, ahead of his contemporaries and of the up and coming barristers. This little theatrical performance was as necessary to him as the moment in court when he slipped on his red judge's robes. The only difference between the two occasions was that he could choose his smartest dark suit not as a uniform but for the cut and feel of the cloth.   
  
His thoughts of Karen in his mind's eye shifted back and forth in focus. At the furthest removed from him was far back in time at the start of the Atkins/Pilkinton trial when he had seen her in his chambers as a human being who was worthy of justice's compassion and of his sympathetic outrage that such a blatant cover up was committed against her…This distant image urged on him a measure of restraint on his natural libido. In the middle ground was the image of the highly capable and articulate wing governor whose mind and abilities commanded his respect. Close up was the vision of Karen's shapely legs and full bodied figure. Her long flowing mane of blond hair falling on her shoulders framed the challenging look in her blue eyes and the slight smile at the corners of her full lips. All this dissolved into a kaleidoscope of images of Karen so that his natural urges were unusually tempered by restraint and a sense of decorum.  
  
He eased his steel grey convertible out into the London traffic and into the heart of London's Docklands and arrived outside the modern block of flats where Karen lived.  
  
Karen greeted him effusively with a kiss on his cheek.   
  
"Where are we going?"  
  
"A table for two at the Ivy if that suits you."  
  
"Sounds fine by me." It was not usual for her not to make the decisions in her life but after her interminable mental turmoil of the past few weeks, she wanted to let life flow and end up tonight where it took her. It gave her an enormous feeling of relaxation as, for a change, she got into the unaccustomed left-hand door and into the passenger seat. One look at the convertible told her that, not for John was it to be the sedate family saloon. The convertible was for the mistress and Karen felt sure that this was the reason for John's choice and not the fresh air in summer.   
  
"It's not every day I go out with a High Court judge. At least I know I'll be safe," Karen's husky mellow voice wound itself round John's waking dreams as he steered the car towards the Ivy Restaurant, a place Karen had not been to before.  
  
John smiled back at her enigmatically as the smooth motion of the car which he controlled took them towards the subdued lights of the discreet restaurant.   
  
When they entered, they were swept up into a different world of soft lights and elegance which put the dingy distempered bare brick walls of Larkhall far behind Karen. The waiter who greeted John knew him to be a regular and gestured them to an intimate table for two. Overhead, four brass fans lazily wafted fresh air round the restaurant that, towards the end of the evening would warm up as the crowds increased. In the centre of the room, the innumerable bulbs of the chandelier threw an endlessly and gently flickering glow that cast its spell on the diners and removed them from the dust and grime of London's busy streets.  
  
It was the first time that John had had the chance to properly look at Karen and the colour of Karen's red silk shirt resonated against the golden glow that had descended upon them all. The vision before him barely separated by the table between them was definitely more sensuous than his mind's eye had dreamed of.  
  
A very pretty waitress approached them with the menu and the wine list. John prided himself as a connoisseur of the fairer sex and could not help but notice the sultry brunette looks of the waitress and her firm breasts even at a moment like this. She offered them the opportunity to take their time to choose their wine in advance of the meal.  
  
"If you don't mind waiting. I am rather particular," John's feeble pretext informed the waitress to wait while, out of the corner of his eye, he stole sidelong glances at her.  
  
In the meantime, he was rather nonplussed when Karen's glance boldly alternated between the wine list and admiring the woman's slender legs and taking in the curves of her body behind the formality of the waitress uniform.   
  
"Are you ready to choose the wine now, Karen. We shouldn't keep the waitress standing around," John replied, his tone of voice a little shorter than he intended. Karen smiled her sphinx like smile back at him.  
  
"I can see you come here regularly," Karen started on an inconsequential note.  
  
"I come here as a refuge from being harangued by some of my fellow judges in the digs," John smiled. "I am regarded as something of a maverick by some of the brethren. At least they would not dream of causing a scene here. Besides," John gestured, "I find the atmosphere soothing. It would be better still if there were a string quartet playing but you can't have everything in life these days."  
  
"I've been there, all right," Karen's cool reply concealed the replay in images of all the unreliable, smooth-talking men there had been in her life.   
  
"Especially when I have the thankless task, equivalent to the Wimbledon umpire, of refereeing between Jo Mills and George Channing as you have seen for yourself," John continued with a wry smile.  
  
"I don't know, John. I would have thought that you would rather like the idea of two women competing for your favours," Karen's reply was framed with her patented brand of playful directness which was very alluring, much though she had rather put him on the spot.  
  
John burst into a hearty laugh to detract from where his thoughts might have been leading him.  
  
"Fine in theory," John retorted playfully in his best outrageous style. "In practice, the idea has its drawbacks. I am fond of them both in different ways but I wish they wouldn't be at each other's throats so much. In recent times, I have to admit that they seem to be capable of working more amicably together," John's melodious voice played expertly against Karen's dreams and fantasies of a few hours ago, as they became real before her eyes. He stopped short just in time before launching into an example of this spirit of unity in citing the civil case against Fenner that was cut brutally short as was Fenner's life. He felt that it was incumbent upon him as a friend of hers, or so the word popped into his mind, to avoid any painful subjects.  
  
Presently, the waitress served them the first course of mussels, expertly presented to them and John's and Karen's attention was not even briefly distracted from each other, a first for John.  
  
"While we're on the subject, it's been on the tip of my tongue," Karen's voice teased its way up and down the scales, "to ask you if you were really having a bet with Jo about whether Yvonne and I were lovers."  
  
John laughed again to distract attention from Karen's level playful gaze.  
  
"It's a new experience for me to be on the receiving end of so many well placed questions. I'm the one who so disgracefully misuses the privileges of the judge's throne," and here he played his pause in a way that a professional actor would admire. "To ask questions, Karen. You are worse than my daughter. And the answer to your question is yes," John added hastily, seeing the twinkle in Karen's eye, which was the prelude to the repeated question, and so he decided to act quickly.  
  
"Perhaps you could tell me about your daughter," Karen asked softly. Her sight of John was slightly swimming before her eyes as the soft background muted conversations broke on her ears like the gentle small waves breaking on the shingles and the soft gentle lighting seduced her senses.  
  
"Her name is Charlie. She's a final year law student who is and has always been very dear to me since I first saw her in hospital many years ago with her big blue eyes and her long eyelashes." A gentle nostalgic smile softened all the lines in John's face and made him feel at peace with himself when he thought of the distant Charlie out there in the adult world while the here and now was this sensuous woman who held him in her spell.  
  
"I wish I could say the same about my son, Ross. Dropped out of uni and we're not exactly on the best of terms. It's funny, John. I thought that as he was growing up entirely in my care that I could give him my strength of will to see him through life but it didn't work out that way," Karen finished with a chill feeling of self accusation. It was as if the window to the cold world outside was opened for a moment and dispelled the delicious warm feeling, especially with this most sympathetic of men.  
  
"You shouldn't accuse yourself this way, Karen," John said, gently placing his hand on hers. His feeling heightened by sexual anticipation were suffused with real pity and understanding and the will to make Karen feel better about herself. For someone so centred, Karen's brief display of vulnerability was far more telling than Franchesca Rochester's utterly insincere "damsel in distress" routine that had ensnared him once.  
  
Presently, the main course of venison cooked with port and crambries arrived and they fell into a companionable silence with no need to plug the gaps of awkward stilted conversations with meaningless trivialities. They knew each other too well to behave that way.  
  
"It's not easy being a parent these days. You need the patience of Job, the judgement of Solomon, the flexibility of mind to understand the rapid succession of teenage trends and………"  
  
"……….still you can get it wrong. You're lucky with your daughter, John," Karen said softly, thinking of the truly gifted man opposite her who she respected.  
  
John warmed to this very intelligent woman with a compassionate understanding who could so neatly cap his thoughts. Flickering images of the various Karens that he saw before him danced before his eyes.   
  
They relaxed in each other's presence while they ate the meal in a leisurely fashion with no need to hurry for what both of them knew lay ahead. The conversation meandered playfully and flirtatiously along between two superbly matched individuals much as in earlier encounters, they had been combative. John admired the way Karen graciously steered the conversation along in much the way that, in another place, his lead violin steered his Mozart piece. The only difference this time was that there were two lead instruments intertwining their melodies along.  
  
"Time to settle the bill, Karen, and then I'll take you home," John's assured voice decided them. There was no suggestion in his voice that he was merely going to drop her off and make his way back to his digs.  
  
They hit the cold night air and the darkness back in the real world. Karen lay back in the passenger seat, content to be driven. The city lights flashed past them and John was conscious more than ever of Karen's subtle perfume and the feeling that the night was young and so was he. It was many a time since he had bought his first car when he was a student that enabled his first conquests. This nights lay in the past, the present and the future as there was no limits to what he could achieve.   
  
Once outside her flat, John politely opened the door for Karen as she smiled up at him. Her earlier reservations had smoothly receded into the far distance as John had made the night out perfect for her. It was this that gave her a delicious feeling of normality that she was in control of her destiny and that she could have a bit of fun for once in her life. Never again would she ever have the vague impression that she once had that judges were some kind of ancient species, a hangover from a bygone age, which their dress in a wig and robes proved to the hilt.  
  
"Would you like a night-cap?" Karen smiled at him invitingly.   
  
"I thought you would never ask," John murmured in his best mock innocent tones.  
  
Karen climbed the steep flight of steps that took her to a place that she was sure of feeling totally safe in the presence of this extraordinary man who wore the majesty of his robes of office so lightly. John, for his part, felt that he was approaching the consummation of his desires when he watched Karen walk on ahead up the flight of stairs ahead of him and the sight of Karen's long slim legs promised him the physical consummation of his desires. Life was good to him and blessed him while he was visited with such pleasures in the life of a carefree bachelor. 


	117. Part One Hundred And Seventeen

A/N: I would be failing in my duty if I didn't warn all concerned, that this chapter is without doubt rated 18.   
  
Part One Hundred And Seventeen   
  
John's initial impression of Karen's flat seemed to gel completely with her personality. It spoke of confidence, subtlety and style. Karen moved in to the kitchen to open a bottle of wine, and John began looking round. He saw that apart from the computer in one corner, all reminders of work were removed from the immediate vicinity. Moving to stand in front of the sideboard, he picked up a picture of a nineteen or twenty year old man, clearly Karen's son. When she appeared and handed him a glass of wine, he gestured to the picture and said,   
  
"He looks like you."   
  
"He looks more like his father," Replied Karen, as John replaced the picture where he'd found it and they sat near each other on the sofa. "He's got that innocent look that totally belies the occasionally obnoxious adolescent you'd think he still was." John laughed, hearing the clear fondness in her tone.   
  
"Charlie thinks she takes after me," He said, "But I watched her once when she was defending a sit in at college, and when it comes to arguing her point, she's her mother through and through."   
  
"So, tell me about George," Said Karen, lighting a cigarette, and blowing the smoke away from him.   
  
"She's the mother of my daughter, and she appears before me from time to time. Why do you ask?"   
  
"Because you wouldn't worry about her as much as you do if you didn't still feel something for her," She replied, blowing a smoke ring at the ceiling. John's gaze sharpened on her.   
  
"You're very perceptive," He said, a slight smile lifting the corners of his mouth.   
  
"It comes with the territory," Karen replied succinctly.   
  
"George and I was, is, complicated. She wasn't really ready for the responsibility when Charlie arrived. She thinks that she totally failed at being a mother, when in fact she didn't really, she just found it a lot harder than most. Half the anger she directs at me, at Jo, at anyone is self-generated. I met her in her last year of university, and she was probably too young to think about settling down. There won't ever be a time when I don't worry about George, and a part of me will probably always love her."   
  
"What happened with her cabinet minister? The last time I had a meeting with her about the case against area, he made an impromptu visit which she didn't seem too pleased about."   
  
"I don't think I've ever met a more spineless cretin than Neil Haughton," John replied, with all the subdued venom of a patient adder. "He gave George a black eye because she failed to get Pilkinton and Atkins found not guilty."   
  
"Charming," Replied Karen in disgust. "I've a feeling he was dispatched with a flea in his ear."   
  
"More than likely," Said John. "When her father found out, he threatened to politically bury Neil, which is the one thing he fears above anything else. But I would have liked to see him answer an assault charge."   
  
"But I guess justice doesn't usually apply to secretaries of state."   
  
"So it would seem."   
  
"And how does Jo fit in to your complicated lifestyle?"   
  
"When Charlie was born, I started teaching law part time as well as practicing it, mainly because the more I practiced law, the more it took me away from home. I met Jo when Charlie was about six. Jo was one of my students. It's quite an on/off thing with Jo. Sometimes she's quite happy to bend the rules of professional propriety, and sometimes she can't stand to be in the same room as me. Jo, quite rightly, can't handle the fact that I'm what she calls a serial womaniser." He watched, as a look of dawning realisation crossed Karen's well-sculptured face.   
  
"So," She said in slight wonderment, "That would explain George's slightly cryptic e-mail."   
  
"Don't tell me," Said John, in half amusement, half disgust. "You weren't the only one who was unequivocally warned off this enchanting little assignation."   
  
"You too?" Asked Karen, a twinkle appearing in those endless blue eyes that reminded him of George's.   
  
"Oh, yes," replied John, "I was told in no uncertain terms that you didn't need my particular form of ensnarement." Karen laughed huskily.   
  
"Well, that was very sweet of her, but I have to say, I'm glad you chose to ignore her advice. I was simply told that emotionally you would hurt me, and to be careful."   
  
"That's to the point, I suppose. And is that piece of well-informed advice being ignored or acted upon?"   
  
"Mostly ignored, though not entirely. What George didn't take in to consideration is that I haven't got room in my head or my life to get emotionally attached to anyone. So, no emotional attachment, no possibility of being hurt."   
  
"Ah, that's good to know," He said, the twinkle in his eye matching Karen's.   
  
She got up and retrieved the bottle of Chablis from the kitchen. As she moved to refill his glass, he halted her hand and said,   
  
"Not if I'm driving." Karen looked him full in the face.   
  
"Do you want to be driving?" She asked, her voice half-playful, half-serious, the flirtation dancing in her eyes.   
  
"That's up to you," He said, both his gaze and his deepened tone leaving her in no doubt as to what he wanted. Karen stood for a moment, the bottle poised, clearly mulling over the choice she now had.   
  
"I think I'd like you to stay," She said, tilting the bottle to fill his glass.   
  
"Are you sure?" He asked gently.   
  
"Yes," She said more certain this time as she refilled her glass. She put some soft music on, and they simply sat talking for what seemed ages. They'd both consumed a large amount of white wine, and were enjoying the feeling of being utterly relaxed after a hard week's work. Looking over at another picture of Ross on top of the television, John asked,   
  
"What happened to Ross's father?"   
  
"I met him soon after I started my nurse's training with the WRAF when I was seventeen. He married me when I discovered I was pregnant because he was quite a lot older than me and he wasn't going to have his child born without a father, but we weren't happy. You might say the morning sickness lasted longer than the happiness did," which made John smile. "He left just before Ross was born, a divorce following very soon after. It's odd to think of being divorced at eighteen. Then he was killed in action in the Falklands. But I see something of Ross's father every time I look at him." John had, a little while ago, rested an arm gently around her shoulders, and was playing with a lock of her hair.   
  
"Apart from the money," He said, referring to the conversation they'd had the other day, "What made you move to the prison service?"   
  
"I think I was sick of watching people needlessly dying. Just after Maxi Purvis killed herself, I remember thinking that I'd only exchanged one utterly failing system for another. When George came on her little visit to Larkhall, she was horrified to realise just how common it was for inmates to harm themselves."   
  
"I think she got more than she bargained for that day," Replied John, remembering just how that day had ended.   
  
"Oh, really," commented Karen, seeing in his face that there was more to this assertion than met the eye.   
  
"I don't think she was disappointed," He said, leaning towards her.   
  
"Lucky George," Said Karen dryly, just before he kissed her. When their lips met, the exploration was slow, languorous and incredibly erotic. The little sound she made in the back of her throat turned him on enormously. They could both taste the wine they'd been drinking since they'd returned from the restaurant. As they were both extremely skilled at this initial stage of conquest, it was almost a contest to see who could last the longest without coming up for air. But eventually, it was Karen, being the smoker, who was forced to take a breath. He was sincerely impressed at her durability when she immediately resumed with the clear intention of continuing for as long as necessary. He was constantly aware of the inviting swell of her magnificent breasts, and eventually he allowed his left hand to trace their curve. As he gently moved a thumb over her nipple, her eyes took on that momentarily glazed expression that told him he'd hit on one of her favourite pleasure points.   
  
When, a while later, they moved as one towards the bedroom, clothes were rapidly discarded along the way. Neither of them could have explained how they progressed from sofa to bed, but when they found themselves touching skin to skin, it felt right. The duvet was half covering them, but John drew it back to look at her.   
  
"You're beautiful," He said, his voice deep with arousal.   
  
"You're not so bad yourself," She said, her eyes running over his well-muscled torso descending to a considerably large cock that certainly looked as though it was ready for action. He could feel her eyes, as though they were tiny needles forever marking him as having slept with her. He wasn't all that used to being as thoroughly scrutinized as he was being now. For Karen, this was simply because it had been a while since she'd slept with a man, her last being Ritchie Atkins to be specific, and she was determined to enjoy every moment of it. Pulling him back down towards her, she began reacquainting herself with the plains and textures of masculinity. Realising exactly what she was doing, he said,   
  
"Is sleeping with a woman so different?" Knowing she'd been caught in the act, she laughed.   
  
"Of course it's different," She said, moving her hand slowly downwards. He halted her hand in its progress, knowing that he wouldn't be able to last if she gave him any more attention, and wanting to maximise what was possibly her first encounter with a man since Ritchie Atkins. Moving his hand back to her right breast to distract her, he coaxed her nipple to a pebble-like hardness, eliciting a deep, throaty moan from her.   
  
"You like that, do you?" He said mockingly, the smirk of triumph evident in his voice.   
  
"I'd tell you if I didn't," She replied, her voice as rich and sultry as fresh honey. Inwardly cursing the fact that human beings weren't born with two mouths, he kissed his way down over her collarbones, until he was circling one of her nipples with warm, agile lips that induced in her a feeling of floating above the waves of total ecstasy.   
  
"Tell me what you like," He said, mumbling around an exquisite mouthful of female flesh.   
  
"There isn't much I don't," She replied, finding it almost impossible to form a coherent sentence now that his right hand was tenderly massaging her other breast so as not to make it feel left out.   
  
"That's an evasive answer if ever I heard one," He said on a chuckle.   
  
"Trust me," She said, "There isn't much I'm likely to say no to at this stage." It occurred to both of them, that she had once said no at and after this stage of play, but neither of them wanting to spoil the mood, they didn't mention it. But perhaps because of this, John's progress was far more tentative than it had been prior to Karen's badly chosen words. Moving back up to her lips, he simply lay kissing her and mapping gentle circles on her thigh with his left hand, almost wanting direct permission to go further.   
  
"You don't have to be quite so cautious," She said between kisses, "Though the thought is appreciated." As if to qualify this assertion, she took his hand and gently inched it between her thighs. This confirmation that she was absolutely sure that she definitely wanted what he wanted to give her, made John feel a lot happier. As his thumb grazed over her clit and a finger dipped inside her, her legs widened in response. As he discovered just how wet and responsive she was to his ministrations, he was surer than ever that nothing but enjoyment could come out of this night. Having lubricated his finger, he moved it up and around her clit, yet not quite touching it until he knew she was inwardly screaming with frustration. Kissing his way down her body, he replaced his wandering finger with his tongue. She moaned with glorious abandon as he ran his tongue expertly over her clit and its surroundings. She tasted delightful, and he knew he could never get enough of doing this to most women. Her breathing increased as he inched two fingers inside her and kept flicking his tongue over and around her clit. She cried out when he located her G spot, and his relentlessly stabbing fingers served to push her nearer and nearer to the edge.   
  
"Come for me," He murmured, and such unequivocal words of encouragement brought her finally to shuddering submission.   
  
He lay watching her, as her breathing returned to normal. After having read all the horrific details of what had happened with Fenner, it gave him a feeling of immense satisfaction to know that he'd brought her to a wonderful orgasm, and hopefully not her last. When she began kissing him again, she could taste herself on his lips, which briefly made her think of Yvonne. To distract herself from treading the rocky road of guilt, she began kissing her way down his body, eventually taking his delightfully smooth, heavy cock between her lips. He sucked in a deep breath of sheer bliss when she put out a darting pink tongue to flicker over the head. Karen was certainly one of the best he'd ever had doing this to him. In fact, she was probably only superceded by George, who after years of just him, had naturally learnt exactly what made him tick. When he knew he was approaching the point of no return, he gently tugged on a lock of her hair to get her attention. They appeared to be of the same mind as she moved back to lie beside him and he hovered over her. When he entered her, she gasped.   
  
"Did that hurt?" He asked in concern.   
  
"It's just been a while," She said, "That's all." Now almost certain that her last male partner had been Ritchie Atkins, John was all the more determined to make her enjoy every minute of it. As he moved with deep, long strokes inside her, he inched a hand between them to give her clit some much-needed attention. He angled his hips slightly to graze her G spot with every thrust. She cried out as she came for a second time, her internal muscles squeezing him to completion. She could feel his boiling hot seed coating her insides, and he was thoroughly aware of her internal walls twitching and throbbing around him. He felt almost bereft as he gently withdrew from her, knowing just how incredible that had been for both of them.   
  
"Do you have any idea how amazing you are?" She said after a while.   
  
"I am told so very occasionally," He said, the post-coital grin evident in the slice of moonlight that was peeping through the chink in the bedroom curtains.   
  
"Modesty really doesn't suit you," She said on a laugh.   
  
"So, my being something of a serial womaniser didn't bother you then?"   
  
"No. In fact, it probably made it easier. It meant I could do this without having to worry about either of us becoming too attached. Straight, utterly magnificent screwing is clearly what you were after, and it certainly hasn't done me any harm either." With this clear affirmation that he could feel totally relaxed with what they'd just done, he put his arms round her and began kissing her again.   
  
"Do you know, I had therapy for it once," He said a while later.   
  
"What, for picking up too many random women?"   
  
"Yes, only I ended up sleeping with my therapist." Karen laughed.   
  
"Why doesn't that surprise me?" He gave her the wide-eyed, innocent look of someone caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "And don't give me that lost little boy look," She said in mock disgust, "There's nothing wrong with being a complete and utter reprobate as long as you admit it."   
  
"Ah, it doesn't always make me very popular with Jo, though," He said, turning serious.   
  
"No, I bet it doesn't. But then, we do all have our flaws."   
  
When they drifted to sleep, her soft, warm body nestling against his hard, muscular one, they both knew this would probably never happen again, but that in having done this together, they had sewn the seeds for a long and lasting friendship. For Karen, this was the first decent night's sleep she'd had in over a fortnight. She felt safe, relaxed and thoroughly content. John watched her sleep for a little while, thinking that where his philandering usually caused nothing but hassle and heartache for those concerned, this particular little escapade had almost certainly achieved some good.   
  
When Karen woke on the Saturday morning, he was gone. What did she really expect, she thought as she turned over to reach the clock, which was when she caught sight of the note he'd left on the bedside table. Putting this down to a particularly John way of doing the difficult bit, she unfolded it.   
  
"Karen,   
  
Last night was enchanting. Please keep in touch as friends, whatever happens. I really mean that.   
  
John." 


	118. Part One Hundred And Eighteen

Part One Hundred and Eighteen  
  
"I'm going to Cassie's and Roisin's, mum. Be back sometime." Lauren's carrying voice trailed down the length of the house to the lounge and just fell short of Yvonne's hearing distance.  
  
"You what, Lauren? Shout out louder," Yvonne's stentorian voice stopped Lauren as she had opened the front door.  
  
Sucking in a deep intake of air to the bottom of her lungs, Lauren opted for brevity.  
  
"Cassie and Roisin's. Remember?"   
  
"Well don't get too pissed when you go out clubbing." Yvonne gave up the battle and made the best possible guess as to what Lauren said.  
  
Sighing, Lauren slammed the door hard and strode out to her car. She was a woman on a mission.  
  
Lauren had heard from Yvonne about her argument with Cassie and strong feelings of guilt and a sense of urgency ran through her, making her tense and edgy. She knew very well that her period of fixated madness had been directly responsible for the break up between her mum and Karen. She now felt that Karen was the partner that her mother was destined to settle down with. It was just that, at the time, she was totally wierded out by the whole idea of her mother with another woman. She realised that she had been imprisoned by the unthinking acceptance of the rigid family values that this wasn't the sort of thing that the Atkins family did. The female Atkins honesty pushed her into concluding that the other reason for her hostility to Karen was that, as she saw it, she identified Karen as a screw, the same as the Old Bill and the Atkins and their friends didn't socialise with the Old Bill, much less go to bed with them. She had lost her brother who was a confused focus of her feelings now that, too late, she felt that she could talk to, Having messed up so far with two people's lives, all her feelings of urgency were focussed on heading off an impending fracture of relationships with another very real source of emotional nurturing.   
  
She had an easy going comfortable relationship with Cassie and Roisin with whom she could be herself and be 'Auntie Lauren' to their two children. With the gathering clouds looming over her, she dare not lose this now. All this gave a heightened emotional edge in her urge to go over to them, to apologise to them if need be and to be with them. More than ever in her life, she needed emotional reassurance.  
  
  
  
Lauren's car screeched round the winding roads to her destination. She slammed the car door shut with a resounding bang and knocked loudly on the familiar front door. The front door opened and the sound of Texas "When we are together" greeted Lauren's ears and Cassie appeared with an empty wine glass in her hand.  
  
"Hey, come in, Lauren. We've laid on a bit of a party for you."  
  
Lauren's grateful senses felt the warm comforting invitation laid out especially for her like a red carpet, gently drawing her inside. Her senses were briefly disorientated as Cassie's and Roisin's house seemed different tonight.   
  
"I'm really sorry for what happened between you and my mum. Part of the reason why I came over is that I wanted to apologise to you," Lauren blurted out before she had time to take in her surroundings.  
  
Lauren looks really attractive when she's apologising, Cassie thought.   
  
"I wasn't at my best, Lauren. I'd had a lousy day and I had a stinking headache. I'm really best not to talk to when I'm like that. Roisin and the kids know that," She grinned.  
  
"If I hadn't done what I'd done, it wouldn't have driven Karen and mum apart and you and mum wouldn't be on opposite sides," Pursued Lauren, feeling uncomfortable that the blame which she felt that she deserved was being taken off her shoulders.  
  
"Hey, Lauren," Cassie said with gentle determination, brushing her fingertips against Lauren's cheek. "Yvonne and me go back a long way. I'll talk to Yvonne and straighten it all out. Nothing's damaged for life that I can't fix. OK?"   
  
"Hey, what's happened?" Lauren answered in a lighter vein, suddenly noticing what was missing. "Where have the kids gone, eh?"  
  
There was a definite party atmosphere that was totally new here. In the past, the almost religiously family atmosphere from two devoted parents drew in Lauren to revert to her childhood to play with Michael and Niamh and when they were in bed, she could savour the quiet serenity of two women who were at peace with themselves and each other. Everything was normally low key and restful.  
  
"Michael and Niamh are at their friends' house tonight as it's half term," Roisin explained. "I know you like to see them but will just the two of us do tonight?" Roisin urged playfully.  
  
"Everything's fine, Roisin," Lauren said evenly. All trace of her nervous edginess evaporated and she had the same feelings of anticipation that she had when she went out clubbing. She had gone out expecting one kind of night out and she had been immediately pitchforked into another kind. The feeling of surprise washed over her and she felt ready for anything.  
  
"We've said before, Lauren, that it's not very often that the kids are away from us," Cassie elaborated. "Roisin used to feel that for the kids to be away from her for one night meant that some sort of umbilical cord was cut. I persuaded her that this was natural insecurity from years of being with Aiden. Now that she is getting some proper loving from me," And here she slipped her arm round Roisin's waist, "she doesn't have to get eaten up by guilt."  
  
Lauren drew an intake of breath when she sensed the strong sexual vibe pass between Roisin and Cassie. This was not part of what she thought of as normality in their house but it fascinated her.  
  
"What do you want to drink, Lauren? And don't say that you can only have a small glass of wine because you're driving," Roisin asked with an indefinable playful edge to her voice.   
  
"I'm staying for the night, am I then?" smiled Lauren, half-questioning, half stating the obvious. She was delighted by the idea that the evening wouldn't end and it made her feel warm inside and wanted.  
  
"Not if you want to risk some late night scalp hunting policeman adding you to his charge list" Answered Cassie in very definite tones.   
  
"But we'd much rather you stay anyway," Roisin hastily jumped in, highly aware that Cassie's casual talk about the police and being arrested was not exactly well timed.  
  
"What'll you have, anyway?"  
  
"A vodka and orange please," Lauren answered politely, unfazed by Cassie's classic gaffe.  
  
Roisin poured a very generous measure and offered it to Lauren.   
  
"This is so much better than sitting for hours in a parked car all hours of the day watching out for the movements of that bastard Fenner and hiding away at home," Lauren's heartfelt tones were amplified by the feel of the alcohol in her system. The evening was blossoming out to her in a way that was in tune with her feelings. "There's nowhere else I'd rather be tonight, sleeping over here. Much though I love mum, it would do both of us good not to be on top of each other twenty four seven. Anyway," and here she took another swig from the glass, "I could seriously do with some fun in my life right now."  
  
Cassie and Roisin burst out laughing at Lauren's unconscious wordplay and Lauren, the hard faced killer of Fenner, smiled sheepishly and innocently at that joke.  
  
"Not got some man in your life?" Cassie teased.  
  
"Not for a long time, yeah. I don't think that any man could keep up with me. I'm going off the sort of creeps that have been hanging around me."  
  
"So what's the problem?" Cassie asked gently.  
  
"Ever since I've been little, all the men that have been around all remind me of Charlie," Lauren's words came out slowly and reflectively as she gazed out into nothingness. "They've all seen him as the cock of the walk and all been a pale imitation of someone I learned to be a complete waste of space. They come out with the same chat up lines, pretending to be tough and in control. It scared me when Mum told me that I looked the way Charlie used to be after, you know, when I came back from Epping Forest. I really thought that I had done my best to behave as differently from Charlie as I could possibly be. That's why I like playing with your kids, it makes me feel innocent and unspoiled. I grew up to despise the man who was my father and thought I could escape him but it's not as easy as I thought and that scares me." Lauren stared away from Cassie and Roisin so that they could not look her in the eye. Lauren's rambling words brought a sense of real pity to the other two women.  
  
"Anyway, I go out clubbing and the men I meet aren't much better. I feel older than them, more mature and they aren't on my level. Perhaps it's that I had to grow up very fast while mum was away while they've lived their normal lives at their mum and dad's. Perhaps an Atkins woman can only marry within the criminal network but I can't deal with all that hardness. So I don't know what I do want," Lauren finished, shaking her head in bewilderment.  
  
"Perhaps what you could do with is some softness in your life," Roisin asked Lauren, finally catching her eye.  
  
She looked back at the other woman and nodded emphatically. Roisin was right, there was something else she wanted to let into her life.  
  
"Hey Lauren, can you remember that time we were at your mum's playing spin the bottle?" Cassie grinned wickedly in the other woman's direction.  
  
"As if I'd ever forget," Lauren laughed. "I was pissed at the time. It was a good laugh."  
  
"So snogging me full on the way you did was just down to too much alcohol and nothing to do with you?" Cassie's soft voice stole in on Lauren's defences in her most dangerously innocent voice."  
  
"It's not that," Came Lauren's uncertain answer. A total kaleidoscope of indeterminate feelings whirled through her mind equivalent to an alcoholic cocktail of confusion, inhibition and a faint tinge of desire. She floundered, feeling more out of her depth than she had ever done in commanding the Atkins empire.  
  
"I wasn't complaining, Lauren," Roisin's provocative soft Irish voice broke in on Lauren's confusion, subtly taking her feelings by the hand.  
  
As she looked, first at Cassie and then Roisin, both glowing mysteriously in the half light, She pulled a few threads out of the tangled tied up feelings. She latched onto her very real fears of ever coming between the two women that she was fondest of, no two women for whom her feelings were flowering.  
  
"Are you suggesting that we play spin the bottle again, Cassie? We've got a bottle of vodka to finish off and you know very well that time we went out for a drink you got pissed and were passed out on my bed."  
  
"Good point," Cassie said pursing her lips and looking thoughtful. Getting drunk and incapable was not in her scheme of things with Roisin and Lauren around. Then her grin split her face as the obvious solution dawned on her.  
  
"Tell you what, Lauren? I'll spin an imaginary bottle and we'll enjoy ourselves better. It's more flexible as well."  
  
Roisin picked up a CD and she put on Tori Amos "Scarlett's Walk" and the sensual voice and compelling music caught her imagination and her senses were taken down the very alluring trail as much as the second large vodka and orange did.   
  
"You caught me lingering   
  
in another girl's paradise   
  
the way she paints the world --   
  
I want that in my life  
  
Emeralds, you should know,   
  
are renting in her meadow   
  
with a stroke beauty lives   
  
how could I resist  
  
you are Desire   
  
when it all is said   
  
said and done   
  
who can Love you  
  
and still be standing   
  
there's Mary calling  
  
up a storm   
  
can I take from you  
  
and not keep taking   
  
naked as day  
  
Gemma follows him   
  
Does it all come down to  
  
the thing one girl fears  
  
in the night   
  
is another girl's paradise   
  
through twists and turns Jasmine foxed me  
  
in her grove   
  
arms filled with Honeybells,   
  
St. Michaels Sanford Bloods   
  
"you have come to discover  
  
what you want"   
  
what I want is not to  
  
want what isn't mine   
  
"But I am Desire"  
  
when it all is said  
  
said and done  
  
who can Love you and  
  
still be standing  
  
there's Mary calling  
  
up a storm  
  
can I take from you  
  
and not keep taking  
  
naked as day  
  
Gemma follows him  
  
Does it all come down  
  
To the thing one girl fears  
  
in the night is another girl's paradise  
  
Does it all  
  
come down to  
  
the thing one  
  
girl fears  
  
in the night  
  
is another girl   
  
is another girl   
  
is another girl's paradise."   
  
Lauren was unsure of exactly what Cassie was intending but let herself get drawn along without complaining, surrendering to Cassie's inviting smile and the amused look in Roisin's eyes. At the very depths of her mind, this was the perfect escape from the situation she had got herself into at home. She was transfixed with excitement and could not take her eyes off the two women who slowly turned to each other and ran their fingers around each other's bodies, Everything happened to take place in slow motion as their lips met and their mouths opened wide as they kissed each other deeply, savouring every moment.   
  
"This has got to be the sexiest thing I've seen in my life," Lauren's voice breathed in on the two entwined living statues of female desire.   
  
"Then why don't you join in?" Cassie's seductive voice articulated Lauren's desires. "You've done it before, remember last time."  
  
Feelings of desire and confusion in equal measure fought for control in Lauren. A force within her that she couldn't give a name to was telling her not to do it, not to do it.  
  
Lauren's leaden feet took her towards the two women and Cassie's slightly parted lips inched closer and closer. Finally, their lips met and Cassie delivered as expert a kiss that Lauren could remember in her life.   
  
"Don't I get a look in," Roisin whispered into her ear as her left hand slid, expertly running its delicate way up Lauren's back.  
  
Lauren broke off her kiss to see very close, Roisin approach her and their lips joined together, not as bold as Cassie but just as self assured. She could feel Cassie, typically not wanting to be left out of it, kissing her on the neck and running her fingers through her hair. This was surely what her dreams, hidden to herself, were urging her to go into that different world while the three of them were blessed by the dim lights and the sensuous voice of Tori Amos playing the soundtrack of their feelings.  
  
  
  
Suddenly, not intended, not wanted, Lauren was struck down by that blind feeling of panic, as if she had woken from her dream and remembered who she was and where she should be. Lauren suddenly broke away and almost fell down in a heap on the chair feeling weak and drained. She felt ashamed of herself, totally guilty and hating the straight Atkins spirit inside her that she could not say no to.  
  
"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry," Lauren burst out, her head looking down and her long hair partly falling in front of her eyes, not daring to look either of the women in the eyes.  
  
"Is this what you really want right now?" Roisin's concerned motherly voice asked.   
  
"I don't know right now. I'm not sure if I know who I am."  
  
"I felt the same when Cassie kissed me for the first time. I felt that I was not the woman I thought I was, not with my strict Catholic upbringing. You don't know how something takes charge of you and pulls you away no matter how much you want to do the opposite." To Lauren's incredible relief, she felt the light forgiving touch of Roisin's fingertips on her shoulders.  
  
"If it happens, and it can happen in the future, that you come round here and you feel differently, you know that you can decide differently, Lauren." The words in that soft Irish voice fell on Lauren like tender raindrops to the inexpressible relief to the side of Lauren that really wanted to do and say yes.  
  
"I know that, Roisin," And Lauren's infrequent but brilliant smile told the two other women all that they needed to know.   
  
"Then let's have a nightcap before we settle down and go to bed. Do you want to sleep here on the settee?"  
  
Lauren nodded a slightly dubious yes, thinking that there was an alternative and starting to mentally kick herself that tonight, at least, she had put that alternative outside her reach.  
  
Lauren downed the glass of vodka and orange which made the edges of the room go blurry and swim round while Cassie and Roisin smiled forgivingly and affectionately, or so she felt. She hadn't ruined this relationship for life.  
  
Presently, she lay down on the comfortable settee in the room with the golden glow while Cassie gently turned the light off. Lauren could not help watch with envy when the two women, with their arms round each other, climbed the stairs and the sounds of their lovemaking could be heard. She felt apart from something which she had made that one mistake in her life, to fail to act when she could have acted in the same way that she acted when she should have held back. These thoughts tortured her as she tossed and turned on the settee and the words of Tori Amos "From a Choirgirl Hotel" That had played earlier on the CD that had hypnotised her came back to haunt her.  
  
"You say you don't want it again and again but you don't really mean it  
  
You say you don't want it- the circus we're in   
  
But you don't really mean it you don't really mean it  
  
She's addicted to nicotine patches  
  
She's afraid of the light in the dark  
  
6.58 are you're sure where my spark is."  
  
She shuffled around, trying to find the one comfortable sleeping position that would send her off to sleep but she was only too aware that, despite the comforting words, she had felt a sense of disappointment that the night had not lived up to its promise as her eyes stared out into the darkness. It seemed an eternity that until the muted sounds of ecstasy from upstairs faded away into silence. At that point, Lauren made a snap decision. It was risky but on the face of it, not half as risky as some of the things she had done in her life. It was that there were people's feelings involved, two women who she cared deeply about.  
  
Cassie and Roisin were sexually replete and starting to doze off into a self satisfied sleep when the landing light clicked on.  
  
"Is it all right if I come into bed with you?" came Lauren's soft, almost child like voice very apologetically. "I'm not ready for, you know what I mean, but I would really appreciate being next to both of you in bed like the way we were the night Ritchie died." "Hey, come here, Lauren. There is a space for you," Cassie called out to her, patting the middle of the bed.  
  
Lauren clicked off the light and gratefully slid into the space made free for her. She snuggled down while she could feel soft arms slide round her and Roisin's faint breath on the back of her neck. Tonight was not all it could have been but she had done something to make matters right. Tomorrow was another day and right now, she felt secure and loved in a way she had yet to define. 


	119. Part One Hundred And Nineteen

Part One Hundred And Nineteen   
  
Karen felt lighter of heart than she had done in a fortnight as she walked in through the prison gates on the Monday morning. Fenner was gone, and the initial shock of that announcement was slowly beginning to recede. On the question of her withholding the knowledge of Fenner's death, her conscience was relatively clear. She did feel guilty for having dropped Lauren in it, and she did feel terrible for having called it a day, albeit temporarily, with Yvonne, but these were both things it had been necessary for her to do. As for John, well, that was also something she could safely say she'd needed to do. A slow, sultry smile spread across her face at the memory of Friday evening. Her insides melted at the very thought of him. But she wasn't stupid, men like John Deed rarely came back for more. She knew she was privileged that he'd left her a note, telling her in no uncertain terms that he wanted her to keep in touch as friends. Immersed in her thoughts, she strolled casually in to her office, the soft, sexy smile being immediately wiped off her face. Standing by the window, clearly waiting for her, was Grayling.   
  
"This is an unexpected pleasure," she said, dropping her handbag on the desk, and knowing that this had to be serious for him to accost her like this first thing on a Monday morning.   
  
"I think a little conversation between us is fast becoming overdue," He said sternly, as she sat behind the desk.   
  
"what have I done this time?" Asked Karen, her blasé manner further serving to irritate him.   
  
"I think that's for you to tell me, don't you," Replied Grayling, not moving from his position in front of the window. Karen fished her cigarettes out of a jacket pocket, and lit up.   
  
"Well, we can do this by process of elimination," She said, taking a long, satisfied drag. "As far as I'm aware, no inmate on my wing has caused any major incident over the last couple of weeks. Yes, some of the inmates have been acting up, clearly as a response to one of their officers being murdered, but they're settling down and I don't think their behaviour on that score is anything to worry about. Fenner's death obviously means that the shortage of decent officers has become far more of a priority, and quite where we'll find a replacement at the drop of a hat, is anyone's guess. In spite of everything, I think my wing is holding it's own. So, where's your problem?"   
  
"Well, you've touched on it in a number of ways," Said Grayling carefully, though Karen could almost see the smoke coming out of his ears. "One of your officers has been murdered."   
  
"And precisely what, do you expect me to do about it?"   
  
"Well, filling me in on a few facts might be a start," He said, his voice imperceptibly rising.   
  
"Such as," Asked Karen blandly, but worryingly certain of what was coming.   
  
"Well, wouldn't you say it was a little convenient," He began icily, "that you get in to a relationship with Yvonne Atkins, and a few weeks later, the man you alleged raped you ends up dead."   
  
"I would be very, very careful about what you're saying," Said Karen, her tone quiet but as threatening as Yvonne's could be. "I don't think being sued for slander would do you any good, would it."   
  
"I'd rather be guilty of slander than guilty of either murder itself or perverting the course of justice," He said, her unequivocal threat rattling him.   
  
"Just what are you insinuating?" Asked Karen, totally unable to believe that he was being quite so brazen about the matter.   
  
"It doesn't take a bloody genius to work it out," Said Grayling scornfully. "Anyone as powerful as an Atkins, would naturally want revenge if they thought one of their associates had been harmed in some way."   
  
"First," Said Karen firmly, "I am not, repeat not, any associate of any member of the Atkins family. Second, even if Yvonne wanted revenge on Fenner for what he did to me, she's not stupid enough to think of breaking the law a second time. She was behind bars long enough not to want to go through it again. My third and final point, is that you've got absolutely no right to question me like this."   
  
"Well, considering your previous liaison with an Atkins, and the disastrous results that achieved, I'd have thought I was well within my rights to find out if you were in the process of making a similarly catastrophic mistake. What is it about the Atkins charm. First the son, now the mother. I'd have thought you'd have learnt your lesson."   
  
"Do you know something," Said Karen, sounding falsely cheerful. "You're the second person to say something like that to me in less than a week, and I'm getting a little sick and tired of hearing it." Then, her anger broke over Grayling's head like a tropical storm. "don't you ever speak to me like that again. That is going way beyond the professional call of duty for a superior. It's verging in to the blatantly inquisitive. There's one little angle of all this that you seem to have conveniently forgotten about. Not so long ago, you covered up for Fenner, withheld knowledge about Fenner's having raped one of your juniors from area management. You were also well aware that I was forming a case against Fenner and area management, because I didn't exactly do much to hide the fact. You were perfectly well-acquainted with the knowledge that two barristers and a Judge had visited me on separate occasions, all of whom were at least peripherally involved with the case I was putting together with George Channing. If either the criminal or the civil case had got to court, which I can assure you it would have done, you'd have looked pretty bloody stupid if and when your cover up was revealed. If I'd won, you'd almost certainly have been facing a disciplinary along with Fenner, which wouldn't have enhanced your chances of being promoted to grade one. You'd very possibly have been kicked out of the service for covering up such a serious crime. One might ask what you had to do with Fenner's death, because where there's no Fenner, there's most certainly no case. Without him to rock the boat, your job is safe for good, and let me remind you, that you had absolutely no problem with me having the semblance of an affair with one Atkins, so you have no room whatsoever to talk to me about my brief and now ended affair with the other. Do I make myself clear?" When she'd finally run out of steam, they simply stared at each other, like the Roundheads and the Cavaliers, both armies facing each other across the county line, working out who would strike next. Grayling was the one to back down first.   
  
"I didn't have anything to do with Jim Fenner's death," He said soberly.   
  
"No," Said Karen, the anger still clearly visible though slightly retreated, "Neither did I."   
  
"So, who did?" Asked Grayling, as if Karen held all the answers.   
  
"Your guess is as good as mine," Said Karen, thinking that with practice, her act really was getting better.   
  
"Maybe Sylvia's right," Grayling added, "Maybe it was an ex-con. Let's face it, he must have upset enough of them in his time."   
  
"I doubt it," Karen replied, "Look at it logically. To pull this off successfully, whoever it was, must have stalked him for some time before it happened. They'd have needed to know where he lived, which shifts he worked, that kind of thing. If Fenner was being followed by an ex-con he knew, he would have twigged, he wasn't that stupid. any con he had any serious dealings with, he would have remembered, which shoots Sylvia's theory right out of the water. The police would do better to focus on ex-partners. After all, he probably had enough of them who might have wanted to do away with him."   
  
"Which brings it back to you," Said Grayling reasonably.   
  
"No, it doesn't," Replied Karen, calming down. "I was pursuing him the legal way. If he'd been convicted of rape, which there was a bloody good chance he would have been, he'd have suffered for the rest of his life. Ex-screws don't get an easy time of it in prison, and Fenner wouldn't have made it any easier for himself. I wanted him behind bars. I wanted him to suffer for what he did to me, to Helen Stewart, to countless others. But for that to happen, he needed to be alive. So, that's why I didn't kill him, that's why I had absolutely nothing to do with his death." Thinking over what Karen had said, Grayling stayed quiet for a while.   
  
"Would now be the right time to apologise for covering up for him?" He eventually asked.   
  
"It might be," Said Karen dryly, "If I believed you meant it, which I don't. You've been caught out making the worst mistake I suspect you've ever made in your life. Don't use Fenner's death as an excuse to try and make up to me for what you did. You were responsible for his escaping justice, and for me questioning every move I've made concerning his case. So, please, don't try to put your professional betrayal aside just because the cause of it's dead and gone. If you ever reach the day when you are truly sorry for making me work with him day after day, knowing what he was capable of, then yes, I will accept your apology, but not before." As Grayling rose and walked out of her office, Karen wondered if he ever would repent his cover up of more than one of Fenner's crimes, but she doubted it. Men like him only felt regret for things that concerned them specifically, not for anyone else. Not for her would Grayling ever regret what he'd done. Not for her, not for Helen, not for Shell dockley or any of the others. Grayling would, in his typical, spineless manner, try to put the affair behind him, as something that could for ever be swept under the carpet of his hopeful and continuing rise in professional status. 


	120. Part One Hundred And Twenty

Part One Hundred and Twenty   
  
"So how was Yvonne bearing up when you saw her?" Helen's question was accompanied by a sudden squall of wind and rain beating on the window, making them glad they were inside. Summer had long past and it was the time of the year when people started to huddle inside their houses.  
  
"Not good," Nikki reflected out loud. "She was obviously glad to see me but I got the feeling that part of the reason that she opened up was that she hasn't got anyone else to talk too."  
  
"Go on," Helen murmured, knowing that Nikki was at her best verbally groping towards the truth in her intuitive way.  
  
"Yvonne is, or was, one of the proudest, close mouthed women that I've ever known. For instance, you remember Renee Williams."  
  
"I've heard about her, Nikki, but I had hardly anything to do with her. I had only just started to spend more time at Larkhall with the 'lifers group.'" Helen's memory spoke aloud in reply.  
  
"I was in the toilets chatting to Yvonne and next I knew was this headcase comes at her from behind with a razor blade. She managed to cut Yvonne before I put a full nelson hold on her and dragged her away from Yvonne. In my well-meaning way, I advised her to watch out for her and she got very defensive saying that she could look after herself. That's Yvonne all over. That was what convinced me that she's got real problems."  
  
"You sound as if you really want to help her, Nikki," Helen remarked as they lay back on the settee letting the aches and pains of a day's hard work ease out of their bodies.  
  
"I'd just like them to have the same chances that we've had since we got out of Larkhall but I'm not sure if it is possible. Not after what I know about you as Wing Governor and Karen Betts won't be much different."  
  
"What do you mean, Nikki?" Came Helen's slightly defensive retort.  
  
"You're a private citizen now, same as I am," Smiled Nikki. "But I know now looking back at everything that your job made you ultra careful not to be in any way shape or form compromised. You had a position to uphold, not only to prisoners but the others lower down in the shit heap. Add Stubberfield breathing over your shoulder and your Minister father," and here Nikki pulled a face, "and you were one very unrelaxed woman. And in a way rightly so or you couldn't have done your job. I'm a bit the same now with the responsibility of a club to run with Trisha. It's a smaller scale thing, no women behind bars resenting your very existence but not so different. I've thought about it a lot."  
  
Helen ruffled Nikki's hair in a gesture of pure affection for the woman who she was profoundly glad she saw behind the total hard case of years ago who spurned all authority, hers included, with words as barbed and jagged edged as the broken bottle with which she had killed the policeman.   
  
"You know, even though that bastard is dead and six feet under, he still has that ability to ruin people's lives," Helen's slow paced Scottish accent crystallised the dread suspicion that neither of them wanted to acknowledge. The shadow should have lifted but it hadn't. And Nikki shook her head incredulously in denial of that thought.   
  
"Once that bastard has gone and is unable to twist, abuse and fuck up the lives of anyone around him, surely everyone should be able to sort their own lives out and live happily ever after or am I being hopelessly romantic?" Nikki paused a second letting the question or statement hang in the air before plunging on in the blind passionate assertion of all the hopes and fears that balanced in her soul.  
  
"Take Yvonne, for instance, put her gangland associations to one side and she is one of the good ones if ever there was one. OK I never had that much to do with Karen but surely not having him around can't make her go and tare up their relationship like this. Lauren only went out and killed Fenner like I did the same to Gossard except that I did it on the spur of the moment and she must have planned it. Surely Karen can see that?" It frightened her that the one happy thought that was worth throwing the parties to end all parties was starting to go sour. Good should triumph over evil, surely.  
  
"It's not as easy as that, Nikki. Karen can't lay Yvonne's past on one side as easily as that," Helen answered softly. "Besides, disasters can happen despite the best of intentions. It happened to us. Remember that time we were in Larkhall and that riot caused us to break up just at the point when the one thing we were working for, your appeal, was starting to go our way?"  
  
Helen poured a drink while Nikki fell silent, afraid of what Pandora's Box Helen was rashly opening. Nikki felt that she was shrinking into the settee while Helen paced round the flat to aid her place her thoughts in order.   
  
"We've never talked about it before as it was painful to both of us," Started Helen, then stopped.  
  
Nikki shivered at the evil memory.  
  
"That's the understatement of the century, Hel," She muttered quietly.  
  
"Will you trust me just one more time to lay this out before us as if I were delivering a history lecture and Helen Wade and Nikki Wade are historical characters?" Helen cut in, feeling bolder and more certain of her ground, a trick of her daytime trade aiding her.   
  
Nikki could relate to this approach, she hoped.  
  
"It all started when you got talking to Femi, and you wanted to get her help as she was a convicted drugs courier. She was jailed and stuck in a foreign country unable to speak a word of English, with children at home with no one to look after them. You came to me and asked me to help her out, right."  
  
Nikki nodded her initial panic calming down as she looked into Helen's eyes.  
  
"We both blew it as I had started to get too smug for my own good, thinking that I could fix everything on my own because I had had a run of successes. You got a bit too impatient challenging me on that point and I never told you what I had in mind as I could have done to talk to her through a translator and earphones. You got pretty pissed off with me as I can well understand."  
  
"Yes, and we were all grumbling about it in the evening, me, Crystal, Babs, the Julies…….."  
  
"All the old lags…." Grinned Helen.  
  
"It was the others who suggested doing something about it and I tried to persuade them against it. When the feeling went against me, I had to be the leader as that was my position and I stood on my soapbox, sorry, the chair, and started spouting off…."Smiled Nikki almost nostalgically before her face darkened at the memory of what happened next. "Anyway, Bodybag came along with her big boots, sent in the heavy mob and pushed us into a sit down strike. We only wanted information as to what was happening to her……."  
  
"Which, if I was around in the right place at the right time and I was thinking straight, I could have explained and cooled everything down. She later kept banging on to me to send in the riot squad and I held her off," Helen exploded with anger as it was only now that she had heard the truth as Sylvia, typically, had covered up her side in the affair.  
  
"I'd changed over the months, thanks to you, Helen. I remember mouthing off once that everyone should be sacked over Carol Byatt's miscarriage. The second time around I called out for those responsible to be disciplined…."  
  
"It was you speaking my lines that got me angry as I couldn't say out in the open that you were right. I'd had enough stick for being prisoner's friend and I overcompensated…."  
  
"…….and I had the whole bloody thing stolen out of my hands by the bloody Peckham Boot Gang. I felt sick at heart and couldn't look you in the eye……."  
  
"…..and I blamed you for kicking off the riot which you didn't want or I. We had good intentions……."  
  
"But good intentions aren't necessarily enough."   
  
"If we had talked over what had gone wrong that day, could we have put things right between us, Helen?"  
  
"We might, Nikki, but you know well that there wasn't ever the chance of that space and time in Larkhall. There never was that chance and we had to have some space from each other. There was no alternative until we could work it out on the outside of Larkhall."  
  
"But Karen and Yvonne are free," Nikki insisted.  
  
"Karen's a wing Governor at Larkhall and Yvonne might not be able to escape from her past as easily as she thinks she might, especially where Lauren is concerned. We're in a different situation. You've got to admit that Yvonne's had a criminal background for years and has children who could easily pull her back if only for covering up for her. Remember that I've seen her file. I like her and I trusted her as much as I trusted you as to what went on at Larkhall, far more than Sylvia and Jim Fenner."  
  
Helen uttered the last names as if she had eaten something distasteful and had to be spat out as soon as possible.  
  
"I'm sorry, Nikki, but I can see where Karen is coming from. I'm utterly detached from Larkhall and it is much easier for you to pick up the threads of where you left off. Think carefully."   
  
Nikki's face betrayed her discomfort as Helen had held forth but at the end of the day, she pieced her way along the links in the logical chain that Helen had cast and she couldn't find a fault.  
  
"You talked to Karen on the phone recently and you got on with her. I know you didn't want to get mixed up with Larkhall any more but………."  
  
"I'll go and talk to Karen and do what I can for her. Things are different now. No court case now against Fenner, no trials, and no witnesses. The ball game has changed. The one person who blighted my life at Larkhall can't hurt or threaten me now. Whatever happened at Larkhall may come to haunt many people's lives but not us, Nikki. I'm not afraid to talk to those whom we liked once and still like. That's a bit of you rubbing off on me."   
  
"That's not the only way I've influenced you," Nikki's seductive voice and wide smile reflected on the woman who swore blind that 'she was not into women.'  
  
Helen playfully through a cushion at Nikki and missed by a mile.  
  
"I'd like to get back to where I used to be with Karen with someone whose heart was in the right place even if she had a lousy taste in men. That's the one debt to the past I would like to repay." 


	121. Part One Hundred And Twenty One

Part One Hundred And Twenty One   
  
On the Tuesday morning, Karen received a phone call from Helen, certainly not a person she was expecting to hear from. The police hadn't been around since early last week, and after her date with John on Friday, Karen was slowly beginning to relax. She smirked wickedly at her reflection in the monitor of the computer as she thought of Friday night. No matter what did or didn't happen to her in the coming months, the memory of that evening was something she would cherish for ever. She was under no illusions about John whatsoever. What had happened between them on Friday would almost certainly never be repeated, but she thought they would stay good friends, which would be a first for both of them. He had probably never had a female friend that he didn't sleep with, and she could probably say the same with regards to male friends. but the note he'd left for her on the Saturday morning had made the probability of a continuing friendship extremely clear. Picking up the phone, she was surprised to hear the familiar Scottish lilt.   
  
"Karen, it's Helen."   
  
"Helen," Karen said in surprise, "I wasn't expecting to hear from you, though I can probably guess what it's about."   
  
"I thought you could probably do with a chat," Said Helen succinctly. "I think we both could." Realising that Helen too would have some unfinished business with regards to her feelings about Fenner's death, Karen capitulated. Agreeing to meet in a wine bar after they'd both finished work, they ended the call, both thinking that it might be time for them to regain the friendship they'd tentatively begun, back in the days before Karen had fallen under Fenner's spell.   
  
At around six that evening, Karen locked her office door and walked out to her car, and drove to where they'd decided to meet. When she appeared in the wine bar they'd agreed on, Helen was already there waiting for her. She waved Karen over to a corner table.   
  
"Hi," She said, "Thought I'd get them in as I was here. Scotch, isn't it?"   
  
"Yes," Said Karen gratefully, "And oh, how I need it," She groaned theatrically as she sat down.   
  
"That bad?" Asked Helen with a small smile, remembering what a day on G wing could sometimes be like.   
  
"Well, Di and Sylvia can't make their minds up as to which ex-con was responsible for Fenner's murder," She replied as she got out her cigarettes. "And I could swear that the Julies are taking advantage of the serious shortfall of officers to come up with some new scam."   
  
"It never changes then," Said Helen with a smile. "Is Sylvia still refusing to even contemplate the idea of change?"   
  
"Oh, yes," Replied Karen, "When we computerised the canteen over a year ago, Sylvia was so clueless, that the inmates managed to fiddle the stock right under her nose."   
  
"So," Said Helen, helping herself to one of Karen's cigarettes, "How are you really?"   
  
"Would it sound stupid if I said I was trying to keep a brave face on things?"   
  
"No, of course not. Have the police been all over Larkhall?"   
  
"No, not really. They were there for a couple of days, but not much longer. You remember those two dithering idiots that tried to pin Renee Williams' death on Shaz Wiley? Well, we had the joys of those two again. I don't know what Grayling said to them, but they seemed to go away perfectly happy about something."   
  
"And how are things with Yvonne?"   
  
"You say that like you already know the answer," Replied Karen dryly. Helen looked slightly sheepish.   
  
"Yvonne did come to see Nikki, at the end of last week. I called you, because it struck me that she had someone to talk to, and you didn't." Karen was incredibly touched by this quiet admission.   
  
"Well, thank you," She said. "Did his death come with as much shock to you as it did to me?"   
  
"No," Replied Helen, signaling to the barmaid for refills, "But then, I'd never lived with him. Jesus, I never even liked him. But you did at one time, whether you like it or not." Karen briefly stared at Helen, suddenly seeing everything she'd missed when Fenner had forced their blossoming friendship apart.   
  
"You always were a straight talker," Said Karen with a small smile.   
  
"About the only thing about me that was, or is," Said Helen with a little smirk, attempting to lighten the situation. Karen laughed.   
  
"You and me both, though Yvonne wasn't quite the first woman I'd looked at in that way."   
  
"Nikki was," Said Helen fondly, "And she did her damnedest to make me believe it."   
  
"I wish I could stay with Yvonne, but it's not as simple as that. I can't just put aside what she was prepared to do and did do after Lauren told us what she'd done."   
  
"I know," Said Helen gently. "There wasn't much Nikki didn't tell me, and what she didn't fill in I can work out for myself. I'm guessing it was Yvonne's immediate reaction to get rid of as much evidence as possible."   
  
"And I understand why she did that," Said Karen vehemently, "But I don't know if I can be in a relationship with someone who can go back to breaking the law at the slightest sign of crisis."   
  
"You can't call finding out that your daughter's killed someone the slightest sign of crisis," Said Helen fairly, "But I do know how you feel."   
  
"Do you?" Asked Karen, the despair at anyone knowing how she felt all too clear.   
  
"Of course I do," Replied Helen. "Listen. When Nikki escaped on the night of Sylvia's party, it gave me the biggest fright of my bloody life. I don't know who I was expecting to see at that time of night, but it wasn't her. At first, I shut the door in her face, I wouldn't let her in. But you know Nikki, she doesn't go anywhere quietly." Karen smiled. "That turned out to be the best and the worst night of my life."   
  
"That's why you were so close to the prison when I called you," Said Karen in sudden realisation, "You were on your way back with Nikki."   
  
"Got it in one. Driving through the gates with her hiding in the back of my car was not an experience I'm eager to repeat. But it was all too much for me. Realising that Nikki and therefore Barbara knew that I'd broken the law, I couldn't deal with it. So, I took some space because I needed it, and that's what you're doing with Yvonne. She won't hold it against you, or if she does, she needs her bloody head testing."   
  
"Maybe not," Said Karen ruefully, "But she would hold sleeping with someone else against me."   
  
"What, and you think that's what I didn't do with Thomas Waugh?" Said Helen, not missing a beat. "When I called it well and truly off with Nikki after the riot, I needed something normal, something that couldn't possibly be construed as wrong, either legally or professionally."   
  
"Jesus," Said Karen, looking thoroughly relieved, "Do you have any idea how it feels to know someone else can make sense of all this."   
  
"Was it worth it?" Asked Helen, intrigued.   
  
"Oh, yes," Said Karen firmly, "I wouldn't have missed that for anything. I do feel guilty, for having done that so soon after finishing with Yvonne, but at least I didn't actually cheat on her."   
  
"Who was it?"   
  
"Strange as it sounds, the Judge who presided over Snowball and Ritchie's trial. You could say I've got to know him pretty well since."   
  
"A High court Judge, eh," Said Helen, sounding impressed, "You're going up in the world."   
  
"Yeah, well, I doubt it'll be happening again. He's got at least one woman permanently on the go, and possibly his ex-wife at the same time, and I know both of them." Helen laughed.   
  
"Karen Betts, you're incorrigible."   
  
"I know, terrible, isn't it."   
  
"No, not in the least," Said Helen, becoming serious again. "Like with me and Thomas, you needed to do something normal, something that you wouldn't have hesitated about doing before all this happened. With Nikki, I knew that I couldn't even think about pursuing anything with her until she was free. If you want some advice, though it doesn't sound like you need it, I'd wait until this thing's run its course before you even consider going back in to a relationship with Yvonne. What Lauren did, isn't going to go away. I have no idea how long it will take the police to work out the obvious, but they will, they nearly always do."   
  
"why the obvious?" Asked Karen, wondering if Helen could possibly have guessed the real state of play.   
  
"Fenner gave evidence at Ritchie's trial, which may or may not have helped to get Ritchie sent down. Lauren is Ritchie's sister, and may have wanted to settle her mother's score with Fenner once and for all." Karen gaped at her.   
  
"You sure you're not working for the CPS?" She asked dryly.   
  
"I wish I was," Said Helen regretfully, "They get paid more than I do. Working part time for an NHS psychology practice, and part time for an NHS drugs rehab clinic, certainly doesn't pay as well as area management used to. But at least in this job I feel like I'm doing some good for once." As Karen went to the bar to get another round, she wondered if she would ever feel like that about her job. Being a wing governor in one of Her Majesty's prisons, meant juggling ever increasing expenses with ever dwindling budgets. It meant coping with fractious inmates and surly officers, none of whom really wanted to be there. Looking back at Helen, Karen wondered if her life would ever achieve the same fairly happy existence as Helen's. A partner who loved her, a job she felt held at least a modicum of worth, and that oh so enviable feeling of being settled with who she was. Karen didn't feel like she would ever get to that stage in anything she did. Everything she seemed to touch just fell apart in front of her.   
  
"Don't look so gloomy," Said Helen when Karen returned to the table with their drinks. "You will get there, believe me."   
  
"Now I know why you spend your days deciphering other people's thoughts," Replied Karen dryly. "If you can interpret my rambling sparks of brain activity across a crowded room, I guess you can sort anyone out."   
  
"For a start, it isn't that simple and you know it," Said Helen, half smiling half serious, "And second, you're not half as tangled up as you think you are."   
  
"I'll take your word for it," Said Karen, lighting another cigarette. "What did you think when you initially heard about Fenner?" she asked, bringing them back to the discussion not far below the surface of either of their thoughts. Helen took a contemplative drag of yet another of Karen's cigarettes. "You didn't used to smoke," commented Karen dryly, when Helen didn't immediately answer. Helen grinned.   
  
"blame that on Nikki. It's a Larkhall habit she's never quite left behind. I tell myself that if I don't buy them, then I'm not a smoker."   
  
"The first step on the slippery slope," Karen confirmed.   
  
"When we saw it on the news," Said Helen, returning to the subject, "At first, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I think Nikki's words were, someone's finally got the bastard." Karen smiled ruefully. "But I think I just knew that there had to be more to it than some random killer. What about you?"   
  
"I was stunned. Lauren had just strolled in to the house, as high as a kite, and casually carrying a gun for all to see. I felt like I was watching some far too real horror film. when she told us what she'd done, I think part of me couldn't quite take it in. Watching Yvonne clean that gun isn't something I'm going to forget in a hurry. She did that like it was second nature to her, which in a way I suppose it was. She reverted to her pre-Larkhall days without a moment's thought. She knows I can't deal with what she was prepared to do for Lauren, and right now that's hurting her more than I ever thought it would. But, as you said, this isn't going to go away. Lauren will have to account for her actions at some point, and there's nothing anyone can do to prevent that." As they sat there a good while longer, drinking, smoking, and catching up on nearly two years of missed friendship, they both felt that in spite of Fenner's determination to separate their combined will to make the prison service a better place, they could and would pick up where they'd left off. 


	122. Part One Hundred And Twenty Two

Part One Hundred and Twenty Two   
  
"Have you seriously considered that George may be heading for a serious breakdown?" Jo asked, straight out of the blue as she served the meal for the two of them at her house.  
  
John was completely unprepared for this as he felt that going to Jo's to spend the night with her represented his striving for the safe, for the normal, for the familiar side of life which at this moment he wanted to get back to. The front of the mews house was built of the sort of rose red brickwork which seemed to grow out of the earth of Old England and the flower garden round the back spoke of the sort of care and nurturing which he needed right now. It was not just the carnal pleasure of nights spent in Jo's bed which he had so forcibly denied at the PCC hearing as Jo was his best friend. John glanced out of the back window and the view represented a three dimensional version of a painting of an English country garden, so perfect, everything in its place. In the foreground, a couple of large sturdy hollyhocks waved in the wind while first a brilliant autumn sunshine and then dark clouds illuminated then darkly shaded the world outside.   
  
"Nonsense, Jo. You saw her at Legover's - I mean Monty Everard's party. She was the very life and soul of the party."  
  
"Careful, John. One of these days, you'll say that in public and there may be a part of you who secretly wants to be found out like the bad school boy," Jo grinned, perceptibly lifting the veil on a side of him that secretly asks for trouble while loudly proclaiming that he acted out of his principles.   
  
"Seriously, John, I don't agree with you about George," Jo's blunt rejoinder as she pursued the main point caused John to raise his eyebrows. He wanted to come to Jo's for some peace and quiet from the turbulence of his life. "It's quite possible for anyone who won't or can't admit some deep-seated problem to go to extraordinary lengths to pretend normality at social functions and keep that mask on their face. Take my father, for instance, who was a past master at the art of that particular performance."  
  
"I remember him well, poor fellow and hearing from you about his alcohol problem." John's voice melted in sympathy.  
  
"My father was an alcoholic," Corrected Jo who had long since learnt to apply that clinical and ruthlessly defining word to the accumulated past memories. "That is only one form of addiction, you know."  
  
"You've made your point," John cut in with a touch of impatience at Jo stating the obvious. "But you know very well that the person who is best able to help is their nearest and dearest. There are too many barriers, too many hurts for me to be able to help George as my ex-wife."  
  
"Addict or otherwise, the only person who can help themselves is that person. Other people around can help out at the most. I'll drop it, john, but let me tell you that I spent an evening at George's and it showed quite another side to what you see on the surface."  
  
Jo secretly smiled to herself at the way she had pushed her point that little bit further while apparently doing what he wanted.   
  
John turned away to make a cup of coffee for them both as she felt that they were getting into this conversation too deeply. It was a habit of his when he felt uncomfortable.  
  
"Why are we discussing George on this occasion when I am with you. I should be telling you how beautiful, how intelligent and level headed you are," The honeyed words rolled off his tongue.  
  
Typical John thought Jo, with a mixture of amusement and exasperation. When he's really cornered, he gets out of a tricky situation by being an outrageous flirt. When she thought about it, she remembered a reprobate friend of Mark who used to be around here a lot. When Mark was about fourteen, he took up with this impetuous slightly older friend who dominated him a little too much for his liking. The two of them got into all sorts of adolescent scrapes and Jo remembered getting infuriated beyond all reason when she tried to impose a measure of order on them. She hadn't got any time with the sort of older generation cliches like, 'well, they are only lads' as she had to come home from a hard day's work at court. For a reason which she couldn't explain at the time, she reserved the greater force of her anger at her own son while this other lad always got off lightly and it was only later that she realised that it was the same sort of little boy/bad boy appeal which had held her back. She was mightily relieved when Mark broke up this friendship as he had had enough of him and went on to become again, the steadily working Mark whom she knew today. It was just as well that it happened as Mark was becoming more and more independent these days which left her with more room for herself, or at least mixed the opportunities of freedom with the perils of which life choices she had now yet to make. When she thought about it, this lad and john had a lot in common except that John Deed was a High court judge and a paragon of virtue in the public arena.   
  
John Deed had this remarkable ability to make conversation with Jo on one level and his thoughts to operate on quite a different level and also to arrange his personal relationships into a particular pattern. On periodic nights, he would pursue his amateur calling as a virtuoso violinist in a quintet which was kept rigidly distinct from anything in his daytime job, or as distinct until Jo Mills found out about it. Another part of him was given to the ancient art of fencing with his favourite sparring partner Roe Colmore which was a hobby which he had maintained from the public school he had attended. His base in the judge's digs gave him the facility to find the particular woman to whom he was attracted at that moment. Jo was his friend, sometime lover and someone, as she said repeatedly, kept her distance as she had come to know the sort of man he was.  
  
It was his fixed habit, whenever he had casual sex, never to think of what that woman might be doing with her life the moment after he drove his car away from the woman's flat. After all, it was the influences on his generation that had played a part in his development. He had been a child of the sexual revolution that, with a fanfare of trumpets, blew the Last Post on the traditional concept of marriage. That had professed expectations that a man would eventually settle down with his childhood sweetheart, walk up the aisle together, bear children and live happily after. True, it might have been the case that the traditional wedding and the birth of the firstborn might be separated by somewhat less than the nine months that custom and biology dictated.   
  
A generation was born into the heady atmosphere of sexual liberation when it became publicly accepted that the woman might not be backward in coming forward in the matters of sexual relationships. In his time at Oxford University, he started questioning the rationale behind the university, the first institution in his life, which he came to oppose. It was here where he learnt the true underlying meaning of the much-quoted lines of Shakespeare.  
  
"Whether it is nobler in mind   
  
To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune  
  
Or by opposing, end them."  
  
In common with like minded more intellectually precocious students who had the questioning mind that universities professed to encourage, he opted for the second alternative. When the bolder students proposed a sit in, he ardently joined the cause and found that the communal sleeping arrangements suited perfectly the more carnal side of his nature. John Deed took to this new culture like a duck to water and the fallout of this came many years later when he met and slept with many women who aimed to be as footloose and fancy free as he was. He understood that this was what they wanted as, after all, none of them had gone out of the way to contact him again after the first night. This proved conclusively to his mind that his view on casual sex coincided with theirs.  
  
"It's a shame that the civil court case that George was preparing against the Prison Service area management has come to nothing. I suspect that when George started digging, more skeletons would come out the closet than there ever is in the Lord Chancellor's Department."  
  
He mulled over the fact that he had broken the pattern of a lifetime in first of all, leaving a note, and secondly insisting on remaining friends with Karen Betts who was a singular woman who he genuinely liked and for whom he had real respect.  
  
"It is indeed a pity as I would have liked to get to the bottom of the tissue of lies and corruption that has undoubtedly taken place. But, alas, it is not to be. I suspect, from my limited experience, that each prison is a closed off world from the public thoroughfare of life and who knows what could happen if, as I suspect, there is insufficient accountability."  
  
He had no idea in what real way Karen would become if only a minor part of his life as a walk on part. Now he came to think of it, the idea of a female friend was something that was new in his life.  
  
"You seemed very positive at the end when we questioned Karen Betts that she had nothing to do with Fenner's murder," Jo said with a slight smile. "It was very chivalrous of you to stand up for her against George's best prosecution attack."  
  
He remembered saying to Charlie that, if only he could divide himself into several parts then each part of himself could enjoy a long term relationship with each of the women in his life that he had most in common with. Charlie laughed at his fantasy and suggested that next time, he engaged the services of a male therapist. That did not appeal to him as laying bare his emotions and innermost feelings was not the sort of thing he did with another man. They belonged to a different world marked out by the men he was closest to, who he fenced with, whom he played the violin with.  
  
"Karen?" He said in his most nonchalant, dismissive tones. "I remember when she was first before me in chambers when she was a woman who I promised to do my utmost to put right the most appalling injustice. There is no ulterior motive and anyway, she was able to take care of herself under cross examination most capably. Now can you have the goodness to talk of matters that concern only ourselves in the precious time we have together."  
  
Jo raised her eyebrows at the way he seemed a little rattled while John thought of that night of passion with that remarkable woman who had appeared as an alien in his mental landscape. He might have asked Karen to remain in touch purely as friends, but never would he forget the feel of her soft, utterly responsive body under his ministrations. He would honour his promise, and remain as only friends with her, but the memory of that night would give him something to dream about during those nights he was forced to spend alone at the digs. 


	123. Part One Hundred And Twenty Three

Part One Hundred And Twenty Three   
  
On the Wednesday evening, Karen was sitting alone in her flat, listening to some soft music and working her way through a stack of incident reports, adding her own comments as to provisional punishments for the inmates concerned, and as ever trying to juggle the numbers of well or otherwise behaved prisoners with the basic, standard and enhanced cell spaces on her wing. She'd discovered some time ago that moving the pieces round on a chessboard often achieved quicker results than attempting to do it by names on the computer. The white pieces represented the prisoners due to be moved either to or from enhanced, the black pieces basic, and the pawns of both colours those on standard as they had the greater number. If the pieces were on black squares, this indicated a cell for more than one prisoner, and the white squares signified single cells. She would write the names of inmates who required a move of cell for whatever reason, and balance them in front of the relevant chess pieces. It was a system that had never yet let her down. Her computer was in the corner between the kitchen and the balcony doors, and the chess board and all her papers were laid out on the small table surrounded by four chairs which wasn't far away. She was drinking white wine, and that together with the music was helping her concentration by slightly relaxing her brain. Rolling her eyes at the brevity of Sylvia's report, because Sylvia hated using a computer at any time, Karen wondered just what she was going to do about the serious shortage of officers on her wing. Grayling's response had simply been to say that if any new officers applied, G wing would be given priority, but that didn't help the immediate situation. Picking up the phone, she dialed Helen's number.   
  
"Helen, it's Karen. I need a flash of inspiration."   
  
"Sounds interesting."   
  
"Not really. Now that Fenner's gone, I've got no one to even make the pretence of helping me to keep the officers on my wing in order as well as the inmates. I could do with definitely one but preferably two experienced officers. I wondered if you had any ideas." Helen thought for a moment.   
  
"Have you ever thought about Dominic McAllister?"   
  
"Dominic? But I thought he was in Greece."   
  
"It might be worth finding out," Replied Helen. "He had the same ambition as both of us, to make the prison service a better place. It was a bloody awful waste when he resigned. If he is back in the country, you might be able to persuade him, especially if you could make it worth his while." Then, breaking off to listen to something Nikki was saying, Helen came back with, "Nikki says, what about Gina?"   
  
"Gina Rossi," Karen said, digesting the idea. "I'm not sure she'd work on the same wing as Di Barker again. Besides, she was firmly sticking to working with men the last I heard."   
  
"That figures," Said Helen, "But which would you rather have, Di Barker who goes after everything in trousers, or Gina who won't take shit from anyone."   
  
"Good point," Replied Karen, "And if I could persuade Dominic to come back, that'd be another reason of getting Di transferred. I always suspected he left because she was ruthlessly pursuing him without any sign of being deterred."   
  
"Let's not forget that you thought I was interested in Dominic," Said Helen with a laugh. Karen joined her.   
  
"Put that down to my initial wing governor phase of naivete."   
  
"We all go through it," Said Helen. "When I first took over G wing, I thought that giving inmates the opportunity to anonymously report drug users and drug dealers was a good idea."   
  
"Jesus," Said Karen with a sardonic smile, "Not with Shell Dockley on the scene."   
  
"No, not my most successful attempt to get the inmates on side," Replied Helen. "But give Gina and Dominic a try. You never know." Ending the call, Karen wrote both names down and wondered if she would be able to persuade two good officers to come back to her wing.   
  
At about half past eight, the doorbell rang. Wondering who would be calling on her on a Wednesday evening, she got up to answer it. Standing on the doorstep was Cassie.   
  
"Hello," Said Karen, looking pleased to see her. "Come in."   
  
"Nice flat," Said Cassie, as they walked in to the lounge.   
  
"Would you like a drink?" Said Karen, "Because I really shouldn't drink an entire bottle of white wine when I've got to work tomorrow." Saying that a glass of wine would go down a treat, Cassie watched Karen move in to the kitchen to get Cassie a glass.   
  
"Is this the Luddite way of assigning prisoners?" Asked Cassie, looking at the name cards dotted all over Karen's chessboard.   
  
"I'm no stranger to computers," Said Karen, handing Cassie a glass, "But this way has always achieved better results." Karen took a seat on the sofa, whilst Cassie sat in an armchair near her.   
  
"How are you?" Cassie asked, after drinking some wine.   
  
"I'm existing," Said Karen ruefully, "Doing nothing but work and worrying about Yvonne. How is she?"   
  
"Miserable," Said Cassie succinctly. "But I think she'll be okay. Let's face it, she'll have to be."   
  
"I didn't want to have to do that to her," Said Karen, "But I had to."   
  
"I know," Said Cassie gently. "I haven't come here to try and persuade you to go back to her. If that happens, it'll only happen when you're ready for it. I probably shouldn't have, but I told her a few home truths last week. With hindsight, I don't really think that telling her to grow up was such a good idea." Karen couldn't help first rolling her eyes and then smiling. "I know," Said Cassie, "Typical me, foot in gob as always."   
  
"I bet half of central London was privy to that little exchange of views," Said Karen dryly.   
  
"Yes, not the quietest row I've ever had. But she'll get over it."   
  
"I feel a complete cow for breaking it off with her, just when she's likely to need someone there," Said Karen, turning serious again. Cassie lit a cigarette.   
  
"Breaking the law, or being involved with someone who does, isn't something most people do lightly. When I pulled my stunt with the bank I worked for, I really thought I wouldn't get caught. But Roisin knew better. She tried to make me put back the money I'd taken, but by then, the damage was done. She was horrified by what I'd done, and for a while, I think she blamed me for her being in prison and away from her kids. If you don't know whether you can deal with what Yvonne did for Lauren, then being in a relationship with her would only lead to disaster."   
  
"When did you become so wise?" Asked Karen with a smile, remembering the mouthy young woman who'd accosted her on her return from holiday, demanding answers to all sorts of questions about when Roisin would be coming back to the wing.   
  
"Being in prison and seeing Roisin getting hooked on heroin made me grow up," Said Cassie. "It made me alter my values, the way I saw things. It made me realise what was important."   
  
"That's sort of what I need to do about Yvonne," Said Karen, taking a swig from her glass. "I need to make my mind up as to whether it's more important to me to stay on the right side of the law, or whether I can love her at the expense of pretty much every principle I've ever had."   
  
"Don't make that kind of a decision in a rush," Said Cassie, "Because if it's the wrong one, you'll only end up regretting it. If the police catch on to Lauren, Yvonne's going to have to make a few decisions of her own. It's not only you who's got to decide what their priorities are, Yvonne's got to do that as well. She'd be missing out on something really special if she can't try and really put her past life behind her. She's always made this pretence of hating everything Charlie represented, but it hasn't stopped her from falling back on it when nothing else seems to make sense. She knows we'll all be there for her, and so does Lauren, but there's only so far that we can all go with them. Lauren might not have meant it like that, but they're in this together." Karen shuddered.   
  
"I don't want Yvonne going back behind bars. It'd kill her to go through all that again."   
  
"I know," Said Cassie, "Which means that they're both going to have to be extremely careful about what they say if the law start poking their noses in." Karen felt torn. On the one hand, she felt fear and confusion and worry for Yvonne, and on the other, she was good friends with a Judge, and had maintained a working relationship with two barristers until all this had happened. She found that she didn't know whose side she was on any more, or even if sides could be determined so clearly. She felt like the bridge between good and bad, right and wrong, and considering the final conversation she'd had with Jo, she might very well mean the difference between freedom and captivity. A while later when Cassie left, she gave Karen a hug and said,   
  
"Please don't stay away just because of what's happened. You're welcome for dinner or a drink any time."   
  
"I'll take you up on that," replied Karen with a smile, thinking that some occasional normality might just do her good. When she stood in her doorway downstairs and watched Cassie drive away, Karen marveled, not for the first time, about how possible it was for a person's opinion of another to change. Before she'd got to know Cassie and Roisin through Yvonne, she would have thought of them simply as two inmates who'd saved Grayling's life and got out on a pardon as a result. But they were people, with lives and children, and a home and who loved each other. Cassie had said that prison had made her grow up, and Karen wondered if Lauren would, at some point in the future, be subjected to the same inexorable process of change in personality as Cassie and Roisin had been. 


	124. Part One Hundred And Twenty Four

Part One Hundred and Twenty Four  
  
"Do we really have to go to Grandma's?" Niamh pleadingly caught Roisin's attention. "We love her but………."  
  
"What's wrong my, ba__, I mean children," As Roisin recovered herself in time, old habits dying hard.  
  
"It's just that we really miss you and Cassie while we're away and her house isn't so comfortable. She makes us get up early on a weekend only because she wants to," Michael weighed in, in a positive whinging tone.  
  
"She only wants you to come over because she loves you and when both of us were away, she never got to see either of you…"  
  
"It could be worse, kids, you could be going to Aiden's mother," Called out Cassie.  
  
"Yeucch," They both called out, their faces twisted in disgust. Roisin's mother was traditional at heart but had come to accept Cassie remarkably well. She couldn't really understand this same sex parenting, as this was not the way anyone she knew behaved in Ireland many years ago. She had held judgement until she visited her daughter and, seeing Cassie being such a capable and loving parent, accepted Cassie for who she was. What also helped was that she had never got on with Aiden's dogmatic, fundamentalist approach to the family and still less liked Aiden's mother especially when she had monopolised the children while Roisin was inside prison. On the infrequent phone calls that she had received from the children, they were clearly unhappy being brought up in a harsh, unfeeling atmosphere. The combination of that had shifted Roisin's mother to becoming more open minded, less sympathetic to the values, which she had been taught.  
  
"All right, we'll go," They grudgingly said.  
  
Cassie and Roisin both drew an inward sigh of relief that they had been able to mediate between the two generations and made everyone happy.  
  
Just then, the phone rang and Niamh picked up the phone being the nearest.  
  
"Yes, Grandma, I'll pass the phone to Mummy," She said with an exaggerated display of good manners, which could only mean one thing.  
  
"I want to see my grandchildren and so does Aiden," Came the peremptory tone of that voice which Roisin had hated so much when she was in prison and was helpless on the inside of the prison walls to look after them or have any say in how they should be brought up. That memory made her all the more determined that she and Cassie should never be in a similar situation.  
  
"Mrs Connor," and Roisin clutched the phone fiercely in her hand. "I'm not against either you or Aiden seeing the children so long as they come back home and aren't upset by the way you treat them. That has happened before on a number of occasions. This weekend, it is quite impossible as my mother has asked them to stay for the weekend. The arrangement has already been made and we're not prepared, Cassie and I," And here Roisin caught Cassie's expression, "to put my mother off when she has equal rights with you and where they enjoy themselves."  
  
Michael and Niamh had caught the drift of the conversation and both clung to Cassie and Roisin in mute approval.  
  
"What does Cassie have to do with the children?" Roisin replied in raised tones. "Because she's my partner and the children look to her as their parent far more than they ever did to their blood parent, your son. We've gone through this matter over and over again and there's an end to it."  
  
On that note, Roisin put the phone down on that female version of Dr Ian Paisley, the type of person who made her blood boil when she was growing up in Ireland. She knew no better when she was young and all she could offer then was an inarticulate resentment mixed with a sense of Catholic guilt which had been deep rooted in her right up till the stressful period in her time at Larkhall when Cassie, that most irreverent of women, had lovingly made her see that there were alternatives to guilt and she could go out and live that alternative.  
  
"We'll stop moaning about grandma," Michael and Niamh chorused. To them now, there was only one grandma in their lives. The other was some sort of ogre who seemed to get some sort of pleasure in being horrible to them. It still amazed Cassie and Roisin how much Aiden and his mother had dropped out of their children's world and how secure Cassie was in the centre of their world.  
  
It still left them with that 'all ready to be dressed up and nowhere to go' at the back of their minds, as they performed the daily family rituals that made the day fit around them. On other occasions, they both felt like spare parts except that they could be more unrestrained in their lovemaking. It was the rest of the time unless they came up with the idea of heading for the pleasure garden of decadent dreams over at Yvonne's house. Since Fenner was killed, they were more reluctant to go round.  
  
After the children were tucked up in bed for one last time, their bags were ready packed complete with the assortment of Niamh's favourite dolls, all of whom just had to be packed and the sort of games that Roisin's mother would tolerate that weren't too noisy and disruptive.  
  
"What will we do, Roash?" Roisin asked. "Go out clubbing?"  
  
Cassie shook her head doubtfully. It wasn't what she really wanted but she didn't know what she did want.  
  
Just then the phone rang.  
  
"That better not be Aiden's mother wanting another argument," Came Roisin's tight-lipped response to the harsh jangle of the phone.  
  
"Hi, it's Lauren," Came the quiet and rather hesitant voice and thrice blessed familiar tones.  
  
"Lauren, how lovely to hear your voice," Roisin exclaimed in jubilant tones.  
  
"You know what we nearly did last Saturday," Lauren's tentative voice started off and stopped.  
  
"How could we forget? And Lauren, we quite understand how you feel," Roisin's warm tones reassured the uncharacteristically nervous, tongue tied woman. Cassie's sharp ears picked up on the train of conversation and her face was split from ear to ear with a wicked grin.  
  
"Felt," Lauren said briefly. "I've been thinking and if the time came for the three of us to be alone together again, I know I would feel differently only I know that there aren't many times when the kids are away. I don't want to get in the……"  
  
"Why don't you come over tomorrow night. By sheer chance, the kids will be over at my mothers. The timing couldn't be better."  
  
She had smoked cigarette after cigarette that afternoon and had taken trigger for a walk twice round the block. He naturally lapped it all up, as his philosophy was the more attention he received from humans, the better and this day was exceptional. To be extra specially good, he took the lead and dropped it in the special place for the lead.  
  
"You ought to go out more, Lauren," Yvonne's voice called out. The atmosphere was claustrophobic and Lauren was doing no good as she was, fretting for no good purpose.  
  
That decided it. There was nothing to be lost by phoning Cassie and Roisin, so she reasoned, there was nothing lost by phoning.   
  
  
  
"That will be great, Roash. I'll be specially looking forward to coming over.  
  
Lauren felt a moment of total shock that swept through her system with a flood of libido and anticipation and a huge feeling of satisfaction that she had done the right thing.   
  
"Don't worry, Lauren. We certainly will," Cassie's seductive tones with an audible grin in her voice gave Lauren all the final reassurance that she needed.  
  
"If Aiden could see me now, and especially tomorrow night," Roisin laughed, marvelling at what her ears were telling her and how much she had changed for the better in her life.   
  
"I know that Aiden is a total nobbing idiot but I didn't think he was a peeping Tom. We won't need any bloody spectators tomorrow night."  
  
Roisin fell about laughing in a totally unrestrained way which brought back the moment when she had first been attracted to Roisin. Her laugh that day was only a restrained hint of what she had come to love about Roisin.  
  
Three women went to bed that night with the promise of the next night of future pleasures. It had taken only a few phone calls to change their lives. 


	125. Part One Hundred And Twenty Five

Part One Hundred And Twenty Five   
  
It was on the dull, gray Friday morning that Jo found herself for the fifth day running, driving in to the car park of the Old Bailey. Again, she was standing for the prosecution and George for the defence, with John seated on his throne on high. We seem to be making a habit of this, thought Jo as she brought her car to a stand still. But George hadn't been her usual argumentative self this week. Yes, she'd stood up for her client, but the spark of anger that always fuelled George's objections was missing. It only took the half-minute of Jo running through the wind and pouring rain, for her hair to look like she hadn't brushed it that morning. Pushing open the door of the ladies', Jo wasn't surprised to see George pulling a brush through her own hair. The high wind had brought a rosiness to Jo's cheeks, but when she joined George at the mirror, Jo could see that there wasn't any hint of colour in George's face. Her skin was as white as alabaster and there were dark circles under her eyes.   
  
"George, you look terrible. Are you all right?"   
  
"Good morning to you too," Replied George drily. At the beginning of the week, Jo had thought George looked tired and as though she'd lost weight, which was something George could hardly afford to do, but this was different.   
  
"You look like death warmed up," Said Jo, sounding too concerned for George's brittle grip on sanity to stand.   
  
"And you look like you've just got out of bed," She said, smirking at Jo's tousled hair. Pulling a brush through her offending blondness, Jo took the hint that George wasn't about to offer an explanation.   
  
All through the morning session, Jo kept a discrete eye on George who looked to be fading with every objection she raised. But somehow, she kept going. It might have taken all her reserves, but not for anyone was she about to lose any respect with her client by crying off. When it finally came to lunchtime recess and after watching her client being taken back to the cells, George uncharacteristically rested her folded arms on the table in front of her and briefly leaned her head on them. Jo was about to go over to her, when she thought better of it. She knew her well enough to know that there was only a certain amount of friendly interest George would take. Collecting her papers together, Jo made her way up to John's chambers. Seeing that Coope had obviously gone to lunch, Jo knocked. When he let her in, they exchanged a hug and a kiss.   
  
"Your ex isn't looking so good today," Jo said without preamble.   
  
"Yes, I noticed," Replied John.   
  
"If I didn't think George knew better," Went on Jo conversationally. "I'd wonder if she was pregnant." John kept his face utterly blank, but Jo didn't miss the slight flicker of his eyelids.   
  
"She hated motherhood the first time round," Replied John, trying to cover up the shock at Jo's innocuous remark. "I doubt she'd do it again."   
  
George looked slightly better at the beginning of the afternoon session, but that was probably only because of the hour and a half's break and a cigarette or three. As it was her turn to cross-examine the witness, she stood resolutely at the defence bench ready to play her part. But only half of her was concentrating on the witness. On the outside, she appeared confident, her strident tones firing question after question at the witness, trying to unsettle him as much as possible. But the other half of her brain was slowly urging her body to shut down. George wasn't stupid. She could feel the fog gradually insinuating its way in to her mind. But she had to keep going. If she could just manage to keep this up for another hour or so, she could go home and sleep. But this wasn't to be. It hadn't gone unnoticed by Jo that part way through the afternoon, George's hand had begun casually resting on the back of the chair that stood at the defence bench. As time went on, her grip on the chair visibly tightened. George could feel it now, that buzzing in her temples that told her she was using up every ounce of energy she had, which was precious little. George had listened to the witnesses answer to her question, and was summoning up the strength to keep going.   
  
"Any further questions, Ms Channing?" Asked John, wondering at her silence and all the time fervently hoping Jo's suspicion was wrong. George took a breath to speak, but her body and her brain had put up with quite enough. As she slid almost silently to the ground, her world went black. Rising swiftly to his feet, John called,   
  
"Court is adjourned," Before rushing over to George, closely followed by Jo. As the defendant was escorted away and the few in the public gallery made their way downstairs, John deftly picked up George in his arms, deciding that she felt far too light.   
  
"Open the door," He said to Jo, gesturing to the door behind the Judge's bench which led to his chambers. As Jo held the door open and John walked passed her, George began to stir.   
  
"Put me down," She grumbled weakly. Walking over to the couch that ran along the back wall of the room, he laid her down on it. Coope had appeared, wondering what the commotion was.   
  
"Could you get us some tea, please?" He asked.   
  
"Does Mrs. Channing need a doctor, Judge?" Asked Coope.   
  
"No, I don't," Replied George, clearly becoming more alert with the old obstinacy creeping back in to her voice.   
  
"If she's arguing, Coope, she'll be fine," Said John. When Coope left them to get the tea, John asked, "What happened, George?"   
  
"I fainted," She replied bluntly, "What did it look like."   
  
"Are you pregnant?" John asked, locking his gaze with hers. George laughed mirthlessly.   
  
"Of course not," She said scornfully. "Just because some people forget about that possibility, doesn't mean I'm stupid enough too." Praying that Jo didn't get the underlying meaning of George's words, John said,   
  
"Then I am forced to assume that your old habit has raised its ugly head again."   
  
"John, please don't do this," Said George, sounding more defeated than Jo had ever heard her.   
  
"You can't keep doing this, George. You absolutely can not keep starving yourself to the point where you're collapsing in court."   
  
"Yes, thank you," Said George curtly. "I've heard it all before. You should know, you've said most of it." John rolled his eyes.   
  
"Then for once in your life, listen to me." Jo stared at her in total realisation. So this was George's vice, the thing in life that kept her going. She had been slightly concerned about her ever since that business with Neil, but she'd had no idea it went this deep. But if she thought about it long enough, George was a perfect candidate for anorexia. George had always been a high achiever, almost desperate to prove herself both as a barrister and as a woman. She'd always taken everything far too much to heart. The prospect of failure had always eaten away at George like a corrosive substance, until Jo supposed the anger and the loathing had finally turned inwards.   
  
"How long has it been, George?" Jo asked gently. Then, at George's questioning look, she added, "Since you last ate." Immediately the shutters seemed to come down, as if to protect her soul from their penetrating gaze.   
  
"Almost a week," She said, not looking at either of them.   
  
"And I bet you were hardly eating a sufficient amount before that," Said John in disgust. Jo glared at him. "Don't look at me like that," He said, turning on Jo. "She has to realise that she can't keep doing this. He turned back to fix his gaze on George. "Because one day you'll go too far."   
  
"I think George probably knows that, John," Put in Jo quietly. George had heard quite enough of them talking about her as if she wasn't there. She sat up and made to get up from the couch.   
  
"You're not going anywhere," Said John firmly.   
  
"Why?" Asked George, her old strident tone not sounding quite right in her weakened state.   
  
"Because someone has to keep an eye on you," Replied John.   
  
"You can't keep me here," Said George, her voice rising with indignation.   
  
"Try me," Was John's only response. It was time for Jo to put her two pennorth in.   
  
"Would you like me to drive you home?" She asked.   
  
"I'm perfectly capable of driving myself home," George said, her gaze swiveling to Jo, but not focusing on her directly. Jo moved forward and held up two fingers.   
  
"How many fingers am I holding up?" She asked, knowing that malnutrition could temporarily effect a person's eyesight.   
  
"Three?" Jo shook her head.   
  
"Which is precisely why you're not going anywhere near your car," Put in John.   
  
"Come on," Jo cajoled. "I'll take you home."   
  
"Fine," Said George standing up. "Anything to get him off my case." She swayed slightly as she walked towards the door with Jo, and John was immediately at her side pulling her arm through his. George didn't protest at his support, which was to him the first sign that she might just be taking this seriously.   
  
When they reached the carpark, Jo opened the passenger door of her car and George sank gratefully in to the seat. When John had shut the door, he followed Jo round to the other side.   
  
"Thank you," He said quietly.   
  
"Wait and see how far I get first," Replied Jo.   
  
"You don't have to do this," He added.   
  
"I know, but I think this needs a different approach from your criticism and bluster."   
  
"And what else am I supposed to do?" John asked, the still pouring rain keeping his quiet yet irritated voice from reaching George's ears.   
  
"You won't get her to give this up by constantly sticking in the knife."   
  
"This isn't the first time she's done it."   
  
"Thank you, but I managed to work that out for myself."   
  
"Don't you be cross with me, too," He pleaded. She gave him a soft smile.   
  
"She'll be okay," Said Jo softly. "Just leave her to me."   
  
"I'll come over later," He said as she opened the car door and got in, immediately turning on the engine and switching the heater on full.   
  
George was utterly silent as they drove, almost transfixed by the windscreen wipers monotonously moving back and forth. Jo didn't attempt to make conversation because she wasn't about to introduce what she knew would be a difficult subject whilst she had the driving to concentrate on. When they reached her house, George let them in and draped her coat over the chair in the hall.   
  
"Tea?" She said, moving in to the kitchen and filling the kettle. Hanging her own jacket over the back of one of the chairs at the kitchen table, Jo said,   
  
"I think you should eat something."   
  
"No," Said George firmly.   
  
"Why?"   
  
"Because I'm not hungry. What other reason is there."   
  
"After a week of not eating, George, I find that hard to believe."   
  
"The body becomes accustomed so that eventually you don't feel it."   
  
"Well, I'm not even going to think about leaving until you do, so please eat something if only to get rid of me."   
  
"You're more persistent than John, and I didn't think that was possible." Under Jo's unwavering gaze, George dug some bread out of the freezer and put a slice in the toaster. Pouring the tea, she plonked two cups on the table and sat down opposite Jo.   
  
"Why are you doing this, George?" Asked Jo, not wanting to frighten her off but knowing that she had to begin somewhere.   
  
"Don't beat around the bush, do you," Replied George, getting up to retrieve the piece of toast. Returning to the table, she stared at the plate in front of her, the smell of the toast almost more than her senses could stand. "It's actually very easy to do after a while," She said conversationally.   
  
"How long have you been doing it?"   
  
"On and off since I was fifteen." George reluctantly began eating the toast.   
  
"Why?" Asked Jo, still watching her. George took a swallow of tea.   
  
"I don't know," Said George, clearly clamming up.   
  
"Yes, you do," Said Jo softly, trying to prod George in to opening up. George finished eating her piece of toast and lit a cigarette.   
  
"I don't want to talk about this."   
  
"What are you scared of?"   
  
"Isn't that obvious," Replied George scornfully. "You are the last person I want to see what a total wreck I am. Ever since John met you, I've had it made pretty bloody clear to me just how much of a failure I am compared to you. Having you firstly witnessing the mess Neil made of my face, and secondly being made aware of what is probably the biggest skeleton in my cupboard, is just a bit too much." Jo helped herself to a cigarette from the packet George had left on the table.   
  
"Taking the evidence on face value," Jo said, taking a long drag. "Did I for one moment judge you when I saw what that creep had done to you?"   
  
"No, but..."   
  
"No. Therefore, I'd say it's fairly likely I'm not about to judge you now. Yes, I was surprised to say the least, and yes, I think you need help, but that doesn't mean I'm about to belittle what you feel or your reasons for doing it." George stared at her for a moment.   
  
"Why?" She asked.   
  
"We all have skeletons, George. The secret is to realise that occasionally, keeping them hidden isn't always the way forward. Anorexia isn't something you can fool around with."   
  
"Please don't give me a lecture. John did that years ago."   
  
"George, whatever you do to your own body is entirely up to you, but if you don't do something about it, one day you will take this too far."   
  
"I know," Said George, suddenly looking utterly drained. "It usually happens when everything else in my life appears to be out of my control. Lately, I just seem to be losing my grip." It was with these words that Jo could finally see the breaking of the brittle eggshell, exposing the tender, vulnerable flesh of the soul underneath.   
  
"Neil giving you a black eye got to you more than you thought it would, didn't it."   
  
"Yes," Said George, "Apart from finding out I was pregnant with Charlie and my mother dying when I was ten, it was the biggest shock of my life. He took away my pride, made me question just what I was. Only John had ever done that before, and at least he had more style about it." Jo began to wonder at her own part in what George had gone through on previous occasions.   
  
"I take it you did this not eating thing when you were married to John."   
  
"Yes, he wasn't amused to say the least. He was delighted when I discovered I was pregnant."   
  
"And you weren't?" George lit another cigarette.   
  
"No. I hated every minute of it," She said, a flash of pain crossing her face.   
  
"It happens," Observed Jo, wondering where this was leading.   
  
"I bet being pregnant was one of the happiest times of your life, wasn't it," Said George bitterly, her self-loathing clearly turned up to maximum.   
  
"Not always, no," Jo replied, and George was surprised to see a dark flash of memory appear behind her eyes. The words seemed to stick in George's throat, making her unable to continue. "What happened after Charlie was born?" Jo prompted, receiving a distinct vibe that this was the heart of many of George's feelings of guilt and weakness.   
  
"I, er, I couldn't love her, not for quite a long time," She said in a strangled voice, the pain radiating from her like heat.   
  
"That doesn't make you a bad person, George," Jo said softly. There were tears in George's eyes, and Jo could see the inner struggle that had so far prevented them from spilling over.   
  
"Of course it does," Said George, her tears finally beginning to trace their parallel paths of despair down her cheeks. "Mothers are supposed to love their children, unconditionally and absolutely without question. It took me months before I could look at Charlie with anything more than apathy." George reached behind her for the box of tissues she always kept on top of the fridge. "John's always been the perfect father. When Charlie was very small, he couldn't do a thing wrong. I was a useless mother." I stopped eating for a while after Charlie was born, because I think it was about the only thing I understood. I didn't have the first idea about how to bring up a child, and I felt a constant failure for not having the normal feelings for her that a mother should have." Now she'd started, George didn't seem able to stop. "And John made it worse by never once reproaching me for it, not seriously anyway. He was so bloody nice to me when I really didn't deserve it."   
  
"Did you stop eating as a form of punishment?"   
  
"Probably. I didn't think about it like that at the time, but then starving oneself isn't actually a conscious decision, you just slide in to it until it eventually becomes a natural reaction to stress."   
  
"So, if you know what to expect, why do you still let it happen?"   
  
"It's like smoking, Jo, the habit's hard to kick."   
  
"So, you punished yourself for not loving Charlie the way you thought a mother should love her daughter," Said Jo, trying to fit the fragments of this five thousand piece jigsaw together.   
  
"It wasn't just that. Everything I did after Charlie was born seemed to make me feel guilty. The fact that John was far better at looking after her than I was, going back to work as soon as possible because at the time it was the only thing I was vaguely successful at, not remotely enjoying bed because I couldn't relax, you name it. That's probably why he went looking elsewhere. Believe it or not, he didn't stray once before Charlie was born, at least I don't think he did. For a while I tried to convince myself it didn't matter. He wasn't getting enough from me so it was almost expected that he'd get it from someone else. I did get back to a vague resemblance of my normal self, and occasionally he would stop chasing women and come back to me. I used to make the most of it when he did, probably to try and make him stay. But he'd got the taste for it. You saw how impossible it was for him to give it up last year when he was having therapy."   
  
"Yes, only John could have therapy because he can't stop picking up women, and then sleep with his therapist."   
  
"We did have some good times after that, but things were never quite the same." Jo looked thoughtful.   
  
"During the Diana Halsey case, I remember how you looked when you were questioning her about the stress of being a single mother and having to make every decision on her own. You were so tense, as if you were ready to bolt at the first opportunity. You almost looked as if you were questioning yourself, not her."   
  
"When Charlie was very small, it sometimes felt like all the big decisions were mine and mine alone. They never were in reality, if anything, John had far more of a hand in things like that than I did. But it felt like it was just me, because it was me and only me who had the problem with Charlie. I think that was because I couldn't tell John about how I was feeling. It would have meant I'd failed, when that's what I did anyway." George suddenly shivered and if possible looked even more tired. "I'm sorry," She said, yawning, "I was up most of last night working on today's defence. My bed is calling me."   
  
"Go to bed if you wish, George, but this conversation isn't over."   
  
"Still determined to succeed where John has failed, are you?" George asked with a wan smile.   
  
"Not quite," Replied Jo, "But I think talking might just be doing you some good."   
  
"What, baring my soul to the woman I've spent half my life envying? But then I suppose anything's worth a try." George stood up and moved towards the kitchen door.   
  
"Would you like some more tea?" Jo asked, also getting to her feet. George turned back and picked up her cigarettes.   
  
"Please." As Jo refilled the kettle and watched George walk out of the room, she wondered just what she was doing here. Before the Merriman/Atkins trial, her and George had been like a match and petrol, put them together and you get fireworks. They had always rubbed each other up the wrong way, both in and out of court. But it seemed like George had shed her outer skin, only to reveal just how vulnerable she was underneath all that glamour and scorn. Jo also thought it might be time for her to tell George why she, Jo, was not the perfect angel George seemed to think she was.   
  
When Jo appeared upstairs carrying two cups of tea, she found George wearing a plain blue cotton nightie and sat up in her enormous king-sized bed, which made her look all the more tiny in comparison. Jo thought that this was possibly the most decadent bedroom she'd ever seen, but glamour was George's middle name. The carpet was a deep, rich red, and was the type that a person's feet would sink in to on first contact. There were small, very stylish wall lights here and there, which gave the room a warm, rosy glow, perfect for seducing anyone. When George thanked her for the tea, Jo asked,   
  
"How do you feel?" George put the tea down on the bedside table and snuggled down under the thick goose-feather duvet.   
  
"I feel like I've smoked some really rough dope, which isn't something I've done since the seventies," She said. Jo sat down in the enormous rose plush armchair in the corner.   
  
"Can you answer me one question?" Began Jo, "Why did you have those pictures taken of me and John?" Much to her mortification, George couldn't help blushing.   
  
"I think that was one of the lowest stunts I've ever pulled," She said.   
  
"Yes," Said Jo drily. "It almost got me taken off the road." George was quiet for a moment.   
  
"I know it sounds ridiculous," She said, "But I think I wanted some proof that you weren't as perfect as I've always thought you were." Jo walked over to the dressing table and returned to her chair with George's cigarettes and an ashtray clearly kept there for her first thing in the morning fix. After lighting one, she said,   
  
"I think it's about time I shattered some of your illusions about me."   
  
"Oh?" Jo took a long drag.   
  
"You seem to be under the impression that I am the embodiment of everything John didn't find in you."   
  
"That about sums it up," Said George, knowing that said like that, it did sound a little ridiculous.   
  
"If we're talking about being the perfect lover, I'd say that this has been fairly successfully contradicted by the fact that John has chased other women as much with me as he did with you. He always has, and I suspect he always will. I'm certain he's been sleeping with someone else recently and it might even be two." George schooled her face in to as blank an expression as possible, but she hadn't had anywhere near enough practice, unlike John.   
  
"Sometimes I think John would have been better marrying and having children with you," Said George trying to change the subject slightly.   
  
"He nearly did once," Said Jo, saying it now so that she wouldn't back out.   
  
"What?" George sat up sharply and immediately regretted it. The sudden movement had made her head spin and set her stomach churning.   
  
"I had a termination," Said Jo quietly. George slumped back on the pillows and just stared at her.   
  
"I'm sorry," Said George, "I didn't know."   
  
"There's no reason why you would. So you see, I haven't always been the perfect mother."   
  
"It's hardly the same," Said George, remembering the time Charlie had got herself pregnant, also by her tutor.   
  
"It feels like it sometimes," Replied Jo. "You dream about it, wake up seeing it, and all you're left with is the what ifs."   
  
"When did this happen?" George asked softly, and Jo was introduced to a new quality in George, a new timbres in her voice that signaled sympathy.   
  
"A while after you and John split up," Answered Jo, knowing that although John's and George's marriage had been on the rocks anyway, she had been the final catalyst that had forced them apart.   
  
"Did John know?" Asked George gently.   
  
"He drove me to the clinic. My husband was terminally ill, and I had two young children to look after. For a while after the termination and after my husband died, I didn't think I could cope with Mark and Tom. I was so depressed and so exhausted, that I asked my mother to have them, but she wouldn't. I certainly wouldn't say I was a good mother then."   
  
"When Charlie was growing up, I just didn't seem to have that ability to bond with her that most mothers find so easy. She's always worshipped John, and I've always felt like I couldn't even come second. The only reason she came to me when she discovered she was pregnant was because John was so against her having a termination. At the time, I thought it was just his usual adverse response at work, but now it makes sense."   
  
"I remember telling him that he couldn't change the past through Charlie," Replied Jo.   
  
"It's funny," Said George, "But..." She suddenly sat up, stayed perfectly still for a moment then, clapping a hand against her mouth, swung her legs out of bed and flew towards the door to the en suite. Hearing the sound of violent retching, Jo moved to the bathroom doorway. Seeing that George was struggling to keep her hair out of the way with one hand, Jo knelt down beside her, gently took hold of her hair and began rubbing small circles on her back to try and calm her down. But this clear evidence that Jo was witnessing her total humiliation brought a fresh surge of tears to George's eyes. Murmuring vague words of comfort and still rubbing gentle circles on George's back, Jo could feel the spasms slowly decreasing until they ceased altogether. As George flushed away the minimal amount of food she'd eaten that day, she reflected that this just had to be as bad as it could get. Her rival, some would say her old arch enemy had just seen her in the most degrading, submissive position possible. As she splashed her face with cold water and cleaned her teeth, she knew that she no longer had anything to fight with. It was only when she caught sight of her unhealthily flushed yet hollow cheeked face in the mirror that she realised she was still crying. Still standing in the bathroom doorway, Jo simply held out her arms. At first George hesitated, feeling so near rock bottom that she thought any sign of sympathy from another human being, especially this one, might undo her completely. But when Jo held out a hand, George found herself taking it. Jo led her back in to the bedroom and pulled her down to sit next to her on the edge of the bed. Jo held George as her body shook, feeling every last ounce of poise and self-respect being torn from her as if never to return. George made very little sound as she wept, but her breath came in deep, shuddering gasps.   
  
"I'm sorry," She said after a while, trying to bring herself back under control.   
  
"What for?" Asked Jo softly.   
  
"For being so bloody feeble."   
  
"You're not," Said Jo simply. "Letting yourself go this much takes courage."   
  
"Why are you being so nice to me?" Asked George, moving slightly away from Jo and reaching for the box of tissues on the bedside table.   
  
"I've been asking myself that ever since I brought you home," Replied Jo. "There's one thing you can tell me though, because there's one piece of this jigsaw that's still missing."   
  
"There's a lot of pieces missing, but go on," Said George, finally managing to suppress her body's awful shaking.   
  
"It wasn't just the fiasco with Neil that made you get in to this state, was it."   
  
"What makes you say that?" Asked George, as ever keeping her cards close to her chest.   
  
"The last time things got quite as bad as this was over Charlie, though I'm guessing you might have regressed somewhat when you discovered my existence and John left. But the main feeling you've associated with starving yourself is guilt. So, what I'm asking is what do you feel guilty for now?" George went utterly still for a moment and then withdrew from Jo completely. She walked across to the small table by the armchair where Jo had been sitting and picked up the cigarettes. As she lit one and held out the packet to Jo, she felt an incredible reluctance to come clean about having recently slept with John. George thought that she could grow to see Jo as a very close friend. Jo hadn't so far uttered one word of criticism or derision for anything George had said or done this day, and it wasn't many people who could be so supportive. George was all too aware that if John had driven her home, they would have yelled at each other and things would have been no different when he left. But Jo had listened to her, divulged one of her own painful skeletons, had watched her humiliate herself in one of the worst ways possible and had comforted her afterwards. George hated what she was about to do.   
  
"Come on, George, it can't be that bad," Said Jo, still watching her with that soft yet penetrating gaze that made George feel as if Jo could read her every thought.   
  
"I slept with John, twice in the last month," Said George, as she perched on the arm of the chair as if ready to run. Jo felt a cacophony of feelings which at first seemed to swamp her. First there was the initial anger that George and John had done this to her. Then she asked herself what else she expected from either of them. Then she was hit with a wave of sadness that almost engulfed her. George had starved herself to quite literally within inches of her life because she felt guilty for betraying Jo. Back in September, on the morning after Neil had blacked George's eye, Jo had for the time being abandoned any differences they'd once had, purely and simply because she could see the hurt and bewilderment emanating from her every pore. But when George had slept with John, for whatever reason, Jo's having been something of a friend to her had caused George to feel inexorably guilty for helping John to do the thing he did best. With a flash of irritation Jo realised that John didn't actually need any prompting to chase other women in the first place. But Jo couldn't feel hurt by George. She'd clearly been in a very vulnerable state for some time, and had maybe gone to John looking for some sense of normality, and John being John would never turn down the advances of a beautiful woman, especially one whom he already knew so intimately.   
  
"Why?" Jo asked quietly.   
  
"Why did I sleep with John?"   
  
"No, why did it make you feel so guilty." George took a long drag of her cigarette.   
  
"Before the Merriman/Atkins trial, you and I didn't used to be able to say one civil word to each other. During that trial, something changed, not just in me but in you too. I finally had my eyes opened to the way Neil and his cronies were prepared to use me to get the type of supposed justice that suited them. I think that with you, it was getting closer to Karen Betts and perhaps slightly too emotionally involved with her part in that case and the one you offered to prosecute for her. Those two weeks softened you up slightly and made me question just what I was doing with my life. Then when I found out in no uncertain terms exactly how far Neil could go if provoked, you listened. You didn't care that at first I shouted at you, made you the point on which to focus my anger. Then we started working together on Karen Betts' case, and even though you never actually said it, I knew that if I wanted someone to listen to me rant about Neil, you would. The first time I slept with John, I woke in the morning to find your picture staring at me from the bedside table. It reminded me fairly forcefully of how much I couldn't have done without your olive branch and yes, I know that this ought to have stopped me from sleeping with him a second time, but we both know how hypnotic he can be."   
  
"Some might call it poetic justice," Said Jo ruefully.   
  
"That's hardly an excuse," Replied George.   
  
"That's what you couldn't tell me, wasn't it. The time you got pretty drunk, two days before Legover's party."   
  
"Yes. When you apologised for breaking up my marriage, that almost finished me off. Virtually everything you said that night just made it worse. I've never felt guilty for sleeping with someone before, and I've certainly never felt guilty about anything concerning you. Sliding back in to my old habit seemed the only way to deal with what I didn't understand." Jo's eyes began to widen in realisation.   
  
"The day after you went to Larkhall, we were starting a pretrial hearing. When I saw you two, before we went in to court, you were in the middle of an argument. That's what it was about, wasn't it."   
  
"Yes. I'd had an attack of conscience, and I was trying to make John listen to me, which you'll know at the best of times can be impossible."   
  
"The night after your visit to Larkhall," Jo didn't need to finish the sentence for George to understand what she was getting at.   
  
"That was the second time. But Jo, knowing any details won't help."   
  
"That's where you're wrong," Replied Jo, "The bare essentials help me to make some kind of sense of it. If you woke up to see my picture the first time, that must have been at the digs."   
  
"Yes. That was the Tuesday night, two days before my few hours behind bars." George watched a frown, slowly creasing its way over Jo's face, as if she was trying to work out the last bit of the puzzle. Suddenly, it dawned on George that Jo was attempting to work out why it had happened a second time. Jo's eyes briefly drifted to the bed whose edge she was sitting on, and immediately slid away, as if contemplating John and George making love here was taking her analysis of the situation a little too far.   
  
"Why a second time?" Jo finally asked the question. "If once made you feel guilty." Remembering all too well precisely why John had come looking to repeat and improve on the first occasion, George blushed, and hurriedly said,   
  
"You really don't need to know that. Please, just accept that there was a second occasion. Please don't ask why." There was such a desperate quality about George's plea, that Jo immediately became interested, seeing that this hadn't been purely to fulfill a temporary reawoken urge. To avoid Jo's unwavering gaze, George stood up and began pacing, eventually standing in front of the full length mirror on the outside of the wardrobe door.   
  
"Good god," She said, taking in her pallid, waif-like reflection. "I do look ugly."   
  
"You've never looked ugly in your life, George," Replied Jo, moving to regain her seat in the armchair, not taking her eyes off George who didn't seem able to keep still.   
  
"Today, I do," Affirmed George. Jo knew that if she waited, she would be rewarded, George's urge to talk was always too strong for her own good.   
  
"John came looking for a repeat performance," She eventually began, "Because I'd questioned his ability by faking it on the Tuesday." A look of dawning realisation came over Jo's face. George had said this with her face turned away from Jo, totally unable to look her in the eye. "I felt so ridiculous" Went on George, the real hurdle now cleared. "I'd gone looking for it, and in the end I couldn't even enjoy it. I wasn't going to let him know that, especially after all my persuasion, and I thought that after all these years, I'd be able to fool him. But this is John we're talking about, and he never misses a trick where women are concerned. I don't really know why I didn't enjoy it, I was probably too wound up, and I think I wanted it too much. I think it shocked him that I'd done that. When we were married, and I was going through my periodic phases of feeling utterly flat and miserable, bed was the last thing I really felt like. It never entered my head to hide it from him. Bed of one form or another, is really how John shows he loves someone. He used to, and probably still does, find it incredibly hard to actually say what he feels, so he follows the philosophy of actions speak louder than words. It hurt him enormously that I quite often wouldn't get any real pleasure out of anything he did, mainly because I didn't feel I deserved it. It's stupid really, but I didn't think I deserved to be happy, and yet it was probably my reluctance to forgive myself for my almost complete failure to really love and care for Charlie that drove him away. I don't really blame him, not now. At the time, I was too angry with everything, his infidelity, my being a useless mother, everything, to be able to see his side of it. But I know I was impossible to live with a lot of the time. He probably went looking elsewhere to get a bit of peace." This briefly made Jo smile. Seeing this, George said, "Did he ever say that to you, in the beginning I mean." Jo looked a trifle sheepish.   
  
"Occasionally," She admitted.   
  
"I'm hardly surprised," Said George, "If I wasn't taking out my anger and sheer self-loathing on me, then I was taking it out on him. To be honest, I'm amazed he stayed as long as he did, but then it was me who eventually said enough is enough, not him."   
  
"You still love him, don't you," Said Jo, after a short pause.   
  
"I'm not sure," Said George, taking a long, contemplative drag of what felt like her hundredth cigarette that day. "I suppose part of me does. I think I'd got to the stage of being totally numb, and scared of what I knew I was doing to myself again. My food intake, or lack of it, was the only thing I seemed able to control. It was the one thing I could hold on to with utter certainty, yet I couldn't even get that right."   
  
"George, if your sole aim was to become as thin as possible and yet manage to keep it from everyone who knew you, and continue to function in court, then you almost accomplished it too successfully. When I saw you this morning, I thought you were pregnant." George shuddered.   
  
"Good god, no. I was a terrible mother the first time round. I won't be making that mistake again." George shivered and Jo realised that George was only wearing a very thin nightie and that with her decreased size must be cold.   
  
"I think you should get some sleep," Jo said, looking at George's clearly exhausted face. George moved back in to the bathroom and rummaged in the cabinet above the sink, emerging with a bottle of sleeping pills. Filling a glass with water, she took two of them. Jo walked in and plucked them out of her hand.   
  
"You don't seriously think I'm about to take the entire bottle," Said George, sounding more exhausted than scornful.   
  
"I don't know, George, are you?" Said Jo, rapidly reading the instructions on the label.   
  
"I might be pretty close to it, but I'm not quite that far gone. Anyway, the wonderful thing about Temazipan is that even if you get tempted, the whole lot would simply make you sleep for a couple of days."   
  
"You'll probably sleep for about fifteen hours on two of these," Said Jo, handing them back.   
  
"Hopefully," Replied George, crawling back under her thick feather duvet and switching on the electric blanket. Jo sat back down in the armchair.   
  
"I like that picture," She said, pointing to the beautiful illustration of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden that hung over the bed.   
  
"It used to hang downstairs," Said George, the drowsiness of drug-induced sleep creeping in to her voice. "But I needed something to look at when in bed with Neil." Jo laughed softly. George turned on to her left side so that she was facing Jo across the room. "Thank you for coping with me today," George said, the sedative giving her the courage to voice such a thought. "I know I'm not the easiest person to deal with when I'm like this."   
  
"George, you never have been easy to deal with," Replied Jo, raising the first smile she'd seen today on that normally beautiful face. Just as George was falling asleep, she murmured,   
  
"I'm sorry."   
  
"What for?" Asked Jo gently.   
  
"For everything." Jo stood up and gently reached over to rest a hand on George's bony shoulder.   
  
"The feeling's mutual," She said, close enough to see the long eyelashes finally lie still on the cheeks that had seen too many tears this day.   
  
Observing that George was finally asleep, Jo went downstairs and made herself a coffee. Yawning, she realised just how much today had taken out of her too. It wasn't just the emotionally crippled who could get exhausted, Jo thought, but the people who spent time with them. About half an hour later, she heard John's car draw up outside. When she went to let him in, he said without preamble,   
  
"How is she?"   
  
"Asleep, I didn't want you to wake her with the doorbell."   
  
"You look done in," Said John coming in to the hall.   
  
"You could say that, which is why I'm going home to bed. I take it you're staying here?"   
  
"I think that'd be a good idea. When she wakes up, it's time me and her had a little chat."   
  
"Well, just go easy on her," chided Jo. "I've learnt more about her today than I ever have about you."   
  
"Okay, calm down. I'll be good, I promise."   
  
"You said that to me on the night you made such a fool of yourself with Francesca Rochester. You didn't mean it then and you don't mean it now."   
  
"Hey, what's got in to you?" He asked, still keeping his voice down at the same level as hers. Jo took a deep breath to bring herself back under control.   
  
"John, I could quite happily strangle you tonight, but I won't because I'm too tired. I've not achieved much today, but I'd really rather you didn't unravel her completely and put her back at square one. Do you think you can manage that?" John was looking at her a little oddly.   
  
"Jo, are you feeling all right?" He asked, never having heard her stick up for George like this.   
  
"I will be when I've had some sleep," She said, moving towards the door.   
  
"Will you do me a favour?" Said John, following her. "I've got Mimi in the car. Will you take her home with you and keep her till tomorrow for me."   
  
"Of course," Said Jo with a small smile. "Mimi I can cope with, it's you I'm not in the mood for." Starting to dread just what George might have told her, John lifted Mimi out of his car and ensconced her on Jo's backseat. When he tried to give Jo a hug and she simply got in to her car, he said,   
  
"What've I done?"   
  
"How long have you got?" Replied Jo. Then switching on the ignition, she said, "I'll see you tomorrow." 


	126. Part One Hundred And Twenty Six

Part One Hundred And Twenty Six   
  
Lauren pulled up outside Cassie and Roisin's house at about seven O'clock. She was surprised she'd managed to get there in one piece - her hands were trembling uncontrollably and her breath was coming in short, shallow gasps. She could barely believe she was actually about to do this. She, Lauren 'straight-as-an-arrow' Atkins was about to go to bed with not one but two women. Two women who happened to be very close friends both of hers and her mother's. She closed her eyes briefly and took a deep, satisfying breath, holding it for as long as she could manage.   
  
"Okay, Lauren, you can do this," she muttered to herself. "You want to do this."   
  
And it was true. Cassie and Roisin hadn't pressured her in any way - she'd called them of her own free will. She was in control of the situation. But right at that particular moment, she didn't feel particularly in control of herself.   
  
"We were wondering when you were going to come in," Cassie said ten minutes later as she opened the door to a quiet and nervous Lauren.   
  
A small pink flush crept up Lauren's chest. "You, uh...you knew I was there then?"   
  
"We don't get many cars as flashy as yours in this neighbourhood," Cassie replied with a wink. Lauren smiled nervously and Cassie slipped an arm round her shoulders. "Don't stress, babe," she said softly. "It's just us."   
  
Lauren felt a little of the tension drain out of her body and she leaned into Cassie a little. "Thank you, Cassie," she said.   
  
Cassie smiled and squeezed Lauren's shoulders a little tighter. "Come on through," she said. "Dinner's nearly ready."   
  
Lauren allowed herself to be led through to the living room where she was presented with a glass of red wine. "You didn't have to cook..." Lauren began to say but was cut off by a low chuckle from behind her. Roisin emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishcloth.   
  
"Don't you want to be romanced, Lauren?" she said, coming up and kissing the brunette on the cheek. Lauren found herself blushing again.   
  
"I- I didn't...I mean, I wasn't..."   
  
"Sssh, it's okay," Roisin hushed her, running her hand down the younger woman's arm. Her voice lowered slightly. "Relax. We're just having dinner for now."   
  
Cassie nodded gently. "Yeah," she agreed.   
  
Lauren nodded tightly and managed a small smile. "You both look nice," she said.   
  
Cassie and Roisin simultaneously ran their eyes down Lauren's body, taking in the tight leather trousers and fitted white button-down shirt. "You too," Cassie breathed, her pupils widening slightly.   
  
Suddenly the atmosphere turned heavy. Lauren took a single step forward, planting herself firmly in Cassie's personal space. Her breathing was slightly shallow as she extended a trembling hand and curled it around Cassie's shoulder. She had the presence of mind to put her wine glass down on the coffee table before she found herself folded up in Cassie's arms.   
  
With a gentle exhalation she buried her head in Cassie's neck, nuzzling slightly and running her hands down her friend's back. Fingers trailed gently through her hair and it took her a second to realise that they were Roisin's. Turning her head she met the Irish woman's eyes. An unspoken question passed between them.   
  
"It's all right," Roisin whispered in answer to that question. Her lips curled in a smile. "You've done it before, remember?"   
  
Lauren looked down. "I know," she whispered. "But...I just wanted to be sure..."   
  
"We want this to happen, Lauren," Cassie interrupted, tilting Lauren's chin upwards so their eyes met. "Do you?"   
  
An endless instant passed before Lauren answered by pressing their lips together. A low sound bubbled up in Cassie's throat as her lips parted and their tongues began a slow dance to music that only they could hear. Roisin's body moulded itself against Lauren's back, her hands resting on the brunette's hips.   
  
Lauren pulled back with a gasp, arching into Roisin but keeping a firm hold on Cassie's shoulders. Roisin's lips found her neck easily, trailing over soft skin and leaving goosebumps in their wake. Lauren let out a small yelp as Roisin nipped slightly at her thundering pulse. She felt Cassie move her lips to the other side of her neck and mirror Roisin's actions. A haze began to build up in her mind and she was glad she was sandwiched so tightly between her two friends or she would have slumped to the ground.   
  
An unwelcome and deeply annoying beeping noise interrupted the moment and the three women broke apart. Roisin looked at the other two, flushed and breathless, and grinned sheepishly. "That's the timer for dinner," she explained.   
  
Lauren took a deep shaky breath and nodded. "Dinner sounds like a really fantastic idea," she said. She needed some time to collect herself. It seemed like every time she was with these women lately she felt so completely dismantled. It wasn't an altogether unpleasant feeling, however, and she couldn't help but wonder what shape she'd eventually take when she put herself back together.   
  
"Why don't you two go through to the dining room?" Roisin said softly. "I'll just go and see to the food."   
  
Lauren nodded thankfully and took Cassie's hand. The dining room was dimly lit and dotted with candles. The table was beautifully set with the best china and a gorgeous floral decoration. "Wow," Lauren breathed. "You're really going to romance me?"   
  
"Mmm," Cassie replied, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek. Her lips moved to Lauren's ear. "You deserve this and a hundred times more," she whispered, the tickle of her breath causing a shiver to run down the length of Lauren's body.   
  
"I'm already seduced from before," Lauren muttered, causing Cassie to laugh low in her throat. She broke away from the brunette's side and pulled out a chair for her.   
  
"If you'd care to have a seat, dinner will be served shortly."   
  
Lauren took her seat with a grin. Her eyes fluttered closed as she felt a pair of soft lips press into the crown of her head from behind.   
  
"I'll just get the wine," Cassie whispered in her ear and Lauren nodded, swallowing hard.   
  
She wasn't sure how long she was left alone in the room but her friends re-entered together, Cassie with the wine, Roisin with their meal.   
  
"I hope you like lamb," Roisin said. "We wanted dinner to be a surprise so we couldn't ask you what you'd prefer."   
  
Lauren opened her eyes and smiled. "Lamb sounds lovely," she said.   
  
Roisin distributed the food and they sat down to eat in silence. Gradually though, the awkwardness dissipated and they began talking and laughing, momentarily ignoring the heavy sexual tension. Lauren found herself telling them stories about her childhood, and they laughed in all the right places. It reminded her that the three of them were friends first and foremost, and that was a comforting thought.   
  
"Refill, Lauren?" Cassie asked, picking up the wine bottle.   
  
Lauren put her hand over her glass and shook her head. "No, I think I need to be sober tonight." She'd already had two glasses and she knew a third would go right to her head.   
  
"I'd have thought that tonight of all nights you'd like to be tipsy," Cassie replied.   
  
Roisin smiled softly, and covered Lauren's hand with her own. "She just wants to be able to remember it, that's all," she said. Lauren looked at her thankfully, and knew she understood the real reason behind her desire to stay sober. Cassie had never had the slightest confusion about exactly who she was and who she wanted to love - she didn't get that Lauren wasn't sure how she'd feel in the morning. She didn't think she'd regret it, but if she did she didn't want to be able to blame being drunk. She'd made this decision and she'd take responsibility for it, whatever happened.   
  
She squeezed Roisin's hand slightly and smiled. "What's for dessert?" she asked.   
  
Roisin looked down at their joined hands and let out a low chuckle. "You," she replied, looking up through her eyelashes.   
  
Lauren's breath caught in her throat and she felt her entire lower body turn liquid. "I...uh...I mean...I..." she spluttered.   
  
"I think you broke her," Cassie quipped as she collected their empty plates.   
  
Roisin laughed as she got up from her chair and stood in front of Lauren. She took her other hand and squeezed gently. "It's all right," she whispered soothingly. "Just breathe."   
  
Lauren tried to take her advice, sucking in a lungful of calming air. Roisin waited till Cassie had left the room and then looked down at the younger woman. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to, sweetheart," she said kindly.   
  
Lauren nodded and leaned forward slightly, slipping her arms round Roisin's waist and resting her cheek against her stomach. "I do want to," she said.   
  
Roisin's hands found the top of her head and smoothed through her hair. "But you're scared?" she said.   
  
Lauren was quiet for a moment and then she nodded. "Terrified."   
  
Roisin smiled as she tilted Lauren's face up to meet her eyes. "I know exactly how you feel," she said.   
  
Lauren wasn't sure who moved first but the next thing she knew she was standing with her arms round Roisin's neck and they were kissing.   
  
"Mmmm," she groaned, a low sound that originated deep in her throat. Lauren's fingers combed softly through Roisin's hair.   
  
"Starting without me?" came a soft amused voice. Lauren tore her lips away from Roisin's and looked over, slightly glassy eyed, at Cassie. The blonde was standing right at her girlfriend's shoulder. Lauren kept one hand in Roisin's hair but curled the other round Cassie's neck, pulling her closer. The three of them moulded together as Cassie and Lauren kissed and Roisin ran her hand down Lauren's back.   
  
"Jesus," Lauren muttered as they parted, though she could barely hear herself over the pounding of her heart.   
  
"Don't worry," Roisin replied. "I don't think he's watching."   
  
Lauren let out a strangled laugh and buried her face in Cassie's neck.   
  
"You ready for your dessert yet, Roche?"   
  
Lauren held on to Cassie a little tighter and whimpered softly.   
  
"Hey," Roisin said. "It's okay, darling."   
  
Lauren looked up into Roisin's dark eyes. She knew Roisin knew exactly what she was going through right now. With only a slight hesitation she reached out for the other woman's hand and placed it gently over her chest, letting her feel the thudding of her pulse. Roisin smiled softly. "You too?" she whispered, bringing Lauren's other hand up to her own chest and letting her feel the answering rhythm of her own heart.   
  
Lauren's smile of gratitude nearly lit up the room.   
  
"I think your dessert's ready," she said.   
  
  
  
The bedroom was lit by a single lamp which cast long shadows across the room. The three women were standing at the foot of the bed, smiling at each other nervously. In the end Cassie was the one to make the first move.   
  
"Take off your shirt," she said to Lauren, smiling when that familiar pink flush crept onto her cheeks. Nonetheless, she complied with Cassie's request. Her fingers fumbled over the buttons.   
  
"Let me, darling," Roisin murmured, taking over. Her hands glided down Lauren's sides, leaving a trail of goosebumps. When the shirt buttons were finally undone Roisin smiled gently and dropped to her knees.   
  
Lauren's stomach muscles clenched when Roisin's lips pressed against her skin. Her hands drifted to the other woman's head of their own accord, threading through silky soft hair. Roisin trailed an erratic path over Lauren's flat stomach, dipping her tongue briefly into her navel. Lauren shivered. "Roisin..." she whispered.   
  
"Mmm?" Her lips never broke contact with Lauren's skin.   
  
"I don't know if I can stand."   
  
Instantly Cassie was behind her. "I'll hold you up," she said, slipping her arms around Lauren and burying her face into a curtain of dark hair. Lauren groaned softly and leaned into Cassie.   
  
Roisin's hands were busy with the fastenings of those gorgeous leather trousers. "What is it with Atkins women and leather?" she wondered aloud when she finally managed to get the buttons undone.   
  
Lauren was a little preoccupied with Cassie's lips on her neck and didn't answer. Roisin smirked. Gently she slid Lauren's trousers down towards the floor, exposing her long, perfectly tanned legs. Lauren found the presence of mind to kick off her shoes and step out of the leather when it lay puddled on the floor.   
  
Cassie pulled back far enough to slide the unbuttoned shirt of Lauren's shoulders. "Much better," she said, raking her eyes over the nearly naked girl in front of her. Lauren shivered.   
  
"Cold?" Roisin whispered, drawing herself up to her full height.   
  
"No," Lauren replied. "Just lonely." With that she reached out and pulled Roisin's shirt up over her head. "Much better," she murmured, and leaned in to nuzzle into the newly exposed flesh.   
  
Roisin threw her head back and groaned in pleasure as Lauren's tongue trailed into the hollow at her clavicle. She wrapped her arms tightly round Lauren's shoulders, running her fingertips down the raised curve of her spine. Her hands found the clasp of Lauren's bra and she took the opportunity to undo it, letting it hang loose on her shoulders.   
  
"Feeling a little left out here girls," Cassie purred close to Lauren's ear. Lauren broke away from Roisin and turned, her breath catching in her throat when she realised that Cassie had taken the opportunity to undress.   
  
"Cassie," she croaked, running her eyes down her friend's body. "You're beautiful."   
  
"She really is," Roisin agreed, smiling warmly. Cassie opened her arms and Lauren sank into them, drinking in the feeling of being skin to skin with her friend. Gently she felt herself being nudged onto the bed and she fell onto it gratefully, not sure how much longer she could have remained standing anyway.   
  
"Cassie," she muttered, and then her lips were otherwise occupied.   
  
After a moment or two she felt Roisin crawling onto the bed. She tore her lips from Cassie's with a genuine effort and glanced over at the other woman. It seemed she'd also been busy divesting herself of clothes. "Oh God," she whispered, letting her head fall back onto the pillow.   
  
"What's wrong sweetheart?" Roisin asked, running her hand tenderly over her forehead.   
  
"Just a little vertigo," Lauren muttered as she leaned into Roisin's touch.   
  
"Don't be scared to fall," Cassie breathed. "We'll catch you."   
  
Lauren sighed gently and closed her eyes. A soft pair of lips pressed against hers ever so briefly and when she opened her eyes Cassie an Roisin were both there, looking down on her kindly. She brought her fingers to her lips.   
  
"Who...?" she whispered.   
  
"Does it matter?" Roisin replied.   
  
Lauren thought about that for a second. "Maybe not," she admitted eventually and Cassie's face split in a wolfish grin.   
  
"Then you won't mind this then," she said.   
  
Lauren frowned as Cassie opened the bedside cabinet and rifled around in it for a second. "What...?" she said.   
  
"You'll see darling," Roisin assured her, kissing her softly.   
  
Cassie reappeared a moment later, a triumphant grin on her face. "This," she said, holding out a rectangle of dark velvet, "is for you."   
  
Lauren frowned and ran her hands across it. "What is it?"   
  
Roisin smiled. "Let me show you sweetheart."   
  
She took the material from Cassie and placed it gently over Lauren's eyes. Lauren felt her entire lower body turn liquid as she realised just what was going on. "Oh God," she whispered softly as Roisin tied the blindfold gently, but securely, behind her head.   
  
"We're going to make love to you, Lauren," Cassie whispered close to her left ear.   
  
"Both of us," Roisin added in her right.   
  
Someone's lips pressed against her left shoulder and she groaned softly. She was surprised she hadn't melted into a puddle of pure arousal yet.   
  
A sharp gasp was drawn from her as she felt her arms being pulled above her head. "Can't have you touching back yet," Cassie's voice said. "Later," she added as she wrapped a length of silk round Lauren's wrists and tied the other end to the headboard. "But not yet."   
  
Lauren tested her bonds briefly but found them to be strong enough to hold her. "Cassie," she growled. Cassie silenced her with a breath stealing kiss. "Relax, babe," she said when they broke apart. "Just enjoy."   
  
And then there were no more words, just two sets of lips, two tongues, two pairs of very talented hands working their magic on her body.   
  
Her back arched as a mouth closed over a diamond hard nipple and suckled gently, alternating between teasing nips and soothing licks. "Oh Jesus," she murmured. A low laugh reached her ears but she couldn't decide who it belonged to. Someone's hands were drifting over her stomach, and another pair of lips found her other breast, treating it to the same attention as the first. All she could do was moan softly.   
  
"Someone should have told me..." she gasped. "That women are this good..."   
  
Neither of her lovers made any audible reply but one of them trailed her lips down from her breast and over her stomach. Lauren had the feeling she was about to find out just how good women could be.   
  
She arched her hips a little to allow her lover to slip her underwear off and throw it over to join the rest of their discarded clothing. A strangled noise bubbled in Lauren's throat as fingers trailed across her ultra sensitive skin, just teasing her. Gradually she realised that the touches were coming from different angles and, therefore, there were two hands. Maybe even two different women.   
  
"Oh, Jesus fucking Christ," she muttered, the thought sending a renewed flood of wetness to her centre. She was close already and they'd barely even touched her.   
  
One of the hands left her and trailed up her side to cup her breast. She felt warm breath on her face and she opened her mouth to accept the hungry kiss almost before it was offered. Her hips arched into her other lover's hand.   
  
When that hand was replaced with lips and a very talented tongue she knew she was lost. "Oh God," she groaned, tearing her lips away from the kiss. "I'm going to..."   
  
She couldn't complete the thought; her lover's touch was drowning out all coherent brain activity. "Who are you?" she whispered, not even aware she'd said anything.   
  
Her hips arched one final time then a cry was torn from her throat as her lover's tongue brought her a much needed release. Images of Cassie and Roisin flashed through her mind, jumbled up together like an unmade jigsaw. She couldn't think, she could barely breathe. The world had condensed into the three of them, this bed, this night. Everything else felt like a dream.   
  
When she came back to her senses she realised there were tears pricking behind her eyelids. "God," she breathed. A pair of hands was cupping her face and two soft lips were kissing her cheek.   
  
And suddenly she didn't care which lover was kissing her and which was wrapped around her torso. She didn't need to know which one had given her that incredible orgasm because they were so inextricably linked in her mind that they may as well both have done it. Cassie and Roisin, Roisin and Cassie, the names rolled off her tongue like they were glued together. She couldn't imagine one without the other. And her feelings for them both were likewise mingled.   
  
"Untie me," she said hoarsely.   
  
She felt her hands being untied immediately. When she was free she pulled off the blindfold, looking into the concerned faces of her two lovers with slightly cloudy eyes.   
  
"Are you all right?" Roisin asked with a frown.   
  
Lauren looked between them for a moment, then broke out in a grin. "God yes," she muttered, and pulled them both into a tight embrace. 


	127. Part One Hundred And Twenty Seven

Part One Hundred And Twenty Seven   
  
John had slept beside George on the Friday night, gently soothing away the dreams she wasn't aware of that made her call Charlie's name. He had no idea of the extent to which George and Jo had talked yesterday, but he guessed that Charlie had certainly been a part of that conversation. Waking at around seven on the Saturday morning, he observed that George was still sound asleep, and still looked utterly exhausted. Pressing a soft kiss to her forehead, he got out of bed and grabbed a quick shower. Leaving a hastily scribbled note on the bedside table to let her know where he was, he left the house, and caught the tube back to the Old Bailey to fetch George's car. She was still asleep when he got back, so he made himself a cup of tea and investigated the fridge. Finding only a couple of lemons, a lettuce that should definitely be certified as extra terrestrial, a box of dubious looking eggs and some condiments, he rolled his eyes and made a rapid dash round the nearby supermarket, picking up some of George's favourite foods to try and tempt her in to eating again. When he returned, it was just before ten. Making himself a cup of tee, he went back upstairs, and seeing that she was still asleep, he sat and read the morning paper. She began to drift in to the realms of consciousness around eleven o'clock, pretty much fifteen hours after she'd gone to sleep the night before. Pushing her hair out of her eyes, she looked over at him.   
  
"What are you doing here?" She asked, her voice still husky from sleep.   
  
"Waiting for you to wake up," He said, looking over the top of the paper. George gradually persuaded her reluctant body in to some semblance of movement, and turned over to reach the clock on her bedside table. Picking it up, she squinted at it. Putting it down again, she caught sight of his note and brought it closer to read it.   
  
"Gone to fetch your car, and to find something edible to inhabit your fridge. If you wake before I come back, don't move. John." She looked up. "Find something inedible to inhabit my fridge, bloody cheek."   
  
"Have you looked in your fridge lately?" He challenged.   
  
"Not so as you'd notice, no," She replied, gently moving in to a sitting position.   
  
"I think we need to talk, don't you?" He said quietly.   
  
"Absolutely not," She replied, "I had quite enough verbal purging yesterday to last me a lifetime."   
  
"Tough," He said gently but firmly.   
  
"Really," She said, slowly getting out of bed. "Well, we'll see about that, but not until I've had a shower." As she walked towards the bathroom, she coughed.   
  
"Oh, god," She groaned, "I think we must have smoked an entire Cuban tobacco harvest."   
  
"You and Jo are a bad influence on each other where that's concerned," He replied, "At least Houghton made you give it up." Standing in the bathroom doorway, she swiveled round to glare at him.   
  
"If all you're going to do is whinge at me, then you can disappear right this minute, because I am really not in the mood for it." Stalking in to the bathroom, she closed the door, not seeing the slight smile on his face. She was reacting, she was arguing with him, that was always a good sign.   
  
When George emerged from the hot shower about twenty minutes later, she found a cup of tea waiting for her on the dressing-table. Wrapped in a towel, she stood in front of the mirror, brushing the tangles out of her wet hair. Whilst she was giving it a going over with the hairdryer, she watched through the mirror as John appeared in the bedroom doorway. Ignoring him completely, she finished drying her hair. After replacing the dryer in the drawer, she was about to make an attempt at deciding what to wear, when he moved forward and said,   
  
"I'd like to weigh you first."   
  
"Please don't," She said, but knowing of old that he would. John walked to the bathroom, and dragged out the scales from under the sink. Silently capitulating to his request, she approached this all too familiar piece of machinery.   
  
"Hey," he said, as she lifted a foot to stand on the scales, "Lose the towel. That probably weighs a kilo all by itself."   
  
"Fine," Said George, draping it over the radiator, "But don't you dare criticize what you see, because I can assure you, you won't like it."   
  
"Have I ever criticised the way you look?"   
  
"No, but there's a first time for everything." When she stood on the scales, he had to try extremely hard to keep the shock out of his face. She was literally skin and bone, her ribs far far too prominent, and with a waist he could probably span with his two hands. Baring her entire weight, the scales stood at five stone ten. George briefly glanced down at the glass plate between her feet, and then up at John's face.   
  
"Do you know something," She said, stepping off the scales and resuming her outer layer of sarcasm, "I've never once heard you swear in the whole time I've known you, yet right now, you look like you could cheerfully utter the most vile word that ever existed."   
  
"Yeah, well, get any thinner and I just might," He replied, slipping far too easily back in to their usual sparring. Then he softened slightly. "George, you haven't been this thin since..."   
  
"I know," Replied George, pulling on a clean nightie followed by a thick dressing-gown, "Not since after Charlie. Five stone seven, wasn't it? So, I've still got a way to go." She knew she shouldn't antagonise him, but it was the only way she could maintain her guard.   
  
"That isn't funny," He said sternly. Hating to give him any satisfaction at having the last word, she stalked downstairs ahead of him and made for the kitchen. On the table, there was a plate of grapes and sliced apple, and she was touched that he'd remembered that this was usually what she preferred to nibble on when she was getting back in to eating again. She hated this. First, he'd make her angry, and then he'd do something like this that reminded her of how much she still needed him. Opening the fridge, she was further thrown to see that he'd done exactly what he used to do in the old days to get her to eat again. Strawberries, smoked salmon, kiwi fruit, and that disgusting French cheese that she liked to eat when it was virtually walking off the plate, together with numerous other things, all with long sell by dates because he knew how long it took her to develop normal eating habits again. Pouring herself a glass of grapefruit juice, she closed the fridge door, knowing that she wouldn't be going near most of it for a day or two.   
  
"Did you eat anything yesterday?" He asked, watching her from the doorway.   
  
"For all the good it did me. I don't know who's the least subtle out of you and Jo in that line of persuasion,"   
  
"Why for all the good it did you?" He asked, not immediately remembering the perfectly normal reaction to reintroducing food to a stomach that has got used to doing without.   
  
"Throwing up in front of one's rival, can never, ever be called an aid to ego enhancement," She replied dryly. "Though I must say, your leading lady does have heights of sensitivity that I wouldn't previously have guessed at."   
  
"You call Jo my leading lady as if I'm putting on a better act than you," He commented. She laughed, her smile very determined.   
  
"Oh, Do I. Well, if you think that I'm the only one who will be having their script well and truly rewritten, you are very much mistaken. I'd say it was about time that your defenses were thoroughly dismantled, wouldn't you?"   
  
"That wasn't my original idea, no," He said warily. Picking up the plate of fruit, she walked towards him.   
  
"Well, I can assure you, I'm not going down on my own. This was your idea, so you're coming with me." Then, her tone becoming gentler, she said, "You've got just as much redirecting of thought to do as I have."   
  
Following him in to the lounge, she saw that he'd lit the fire, which was now crackling gently and emitting a welcoming warmth. John had drawn up the largest armchair and placed it at right angles to the fire. He took the plate of fruit from her and put it on the coffee table, and when she moved to take her usual place on the sofa, he took her hand and they moved towards the armchair. In the old days, they'd often snuggled close together in this chair, it being large enough to take the two of them. It seemed almost natural for them to slip in to their old position, each with an arm around the other with her leaning against him. It occurred to her that they hadn't done this for years, but she didn't voice the thought. There were far too many things, simple, little, wonderful things they hadn't done for a very long time. He had moved the coffee table so that the plate of fruit, plus her cigarettes and an ashtray were in easy reach of her right hand. For a while, they simply sat there, John painfully aware of how thin she was, and George suddenly quiet, now that the time had finally come.   
  
"Tell me what you talked about with Jo yesterday," John eventually prompted.   
  
"Mostly about you, and Charlie. Jo's like you, she has a way of making you talk when it's the last bloody thing in the world you want to contemplate. We established the fact that I have more guilt festering away inside me than an entire congregation of Roman Catholics. What more is there to it." She picked up a slice of apple from the plate and stared at it. John simply watched her. He made no comment when she put it back down, knowing that she would eat it eventually.   
  
"We'll come to why you did this again in a while," Said John, "But I think we ought to go back to what happened the first time." He felt her stiffen. "When Charlie was born," He continued, "You hid everything about the way you felt from me."   
  
"And are you surprised?" She asked in disgust.   
  
"No," He said patiently, "But I'd like to know why."   
  
"John, you know why. For some wholly unfathomable reason, I didn't or couldn't love my own daughter." He felt her recoil from her own words. "How was I supposed to tell her utterly besotted father, that I didn't love the child he'd given me. The day you dragged that confession out of me, was without doubt the worst day of my life." In thought, John was forced to admit that it had certainly been one of his. "I felt like the most evil woman who'd ever existed," She said in a strangled voice, the pain being gradually dragged out in to the open like the excision of diseased tissue. "Charlie was, is, beautiful, but I was so bloody self-obsessed that I couldn't make room in my life for her."   
  
"But you did," He said gently, "You cared for her far better than you ever thought you did. Outwardly, you never once let Charlie know how you felt, and that was what mattered."   
  
"And we both know that only lasted until she was of an age where explaining my absence became necessary," Said George bitterly. "Charlie isn't stupid, John. She knows she lived with you most of the time because I couldn't deal with the responsibility, because that normal, maternal instinct never quite got turned on. Charlie knows that for years I only really tolerated her presence, and that even now, that what I feel for her is so mixed up that I couldn't ever begin to explain it. Whether she worked that out on her own, or whether you enlightened her, I don't know."   
  
"George, I may have done a lot of regrettable things in my time," He said firmly, "But I have never been disloyal to you where Charlie's concerned. What Charlie may or may not have discovered about why things were the way they were, has never come from me."   
  
"That's what I don't understand. Why have you always protected me in that way. It isn't as if I deserved it. Why will you never blame me for failing at the most natural thing in the world." Her voice had taken on a slightly hysterical quality and she turned her face away from him in an effort to hide the tears that had risen to her eyes. "I really can't do this, John," She said, aware of the ongoing mantra in her head that said, I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry.   
  
"Yes, you can," He said slowly, feeling the familiar physical and emotional tension in her that meant she was about to flea, about to run as far and as fast as possible from the inevitable crumbling of her walls that was steadily catching up with her. She reached desperately for a cigarette, knowing that the breathing action necessary for smoking would bring her body back under control. She considerately turned her face to blow the smoke away from him, and the deep intake of every drag did have the desired effect of allowing her to temporarily regain her equilibrium.   
  
"Why the frantic desire not to cry?" He asked, knowing exactly what she was doing.   
  
"Because I loathe losing control with anyone, but especially with you. I'm not entirely sure that I'll be able to stop."   
  
"Would it surprise you to know that I felt exactly the same with my therapist?"   
  
"No, it wouldn't surprise me in the least, because I suspect that's why you then slept with her, to regain the reins so to speak."   
  
"That's very astute of you," He said with a wry smile.   
  
"I know you a lot better than you think I do, John," She said seriously. "You hate losing control just as much as I do. The difference is that I maintain the appearance of control by not eating, and you do it by screwing." He flinched at her last word, and she said, "Don't look at me like that. You don't make love to most of those women, because you don't hang around long enough to even possibly love them. Taking some random woman to bed is sometimes the one thing in your life that you understand, the one thing you almost always succeed at. For anyone who knows you, it is noticeable that you will pick up someone new when a part of your life is out of your control. Take that waitress friend of Charlie's for example. The only reason you started seeing her, I've forgotten her name."   
  
"Carol."   
  
"That's it, Carol. Well, I think you only started seeing Carol because Jo was getting to you by having the appearance of a fling with Roe Colmore. Then, with your therapist, she all but forced you to lose control, which I suspect isn't something you've ever done with anyone except perhaps Jo. The only time I've ever seen you cry was when Charlie was born because you were so happy. So, pursuing and eventually seducing your therapist was your way of reasserting your control. I'd even go so far as to say that that's why you came looking for a repeat performance with me. It got to you that I didn't enjoy it, especially when you'd discovered why I came looking for it. But it got to you even more that I'd attempted to hide that from you. You're not used to not being able to satisfy any woman you sleep with, and you wanted to prove that you could still do it for me." He looked at her with a contemplative gaze.   
  
"I've never thought about it like that," He said, "In the old days, you'd never have even thought about faking it. If you didn't enjoy it, you said so."   
  
"And I have memory enough to know that it hurt you whenever I said that. It didn't occur to me to lie to you about it, but sometimes I wish I had. For you, making love is how you express your love for someone."   
  
"Isn't it for everyone?"   
  
"Yes, most of the time it is. But for you, it's more important. Making someone writhe in total ecstasy is far more acceptable and far safer than admitting to your real feelings. I didn't know that when we were married, but I've worked it out since."   
  
"I used to think you didn't love me," He said, slightly astounded that these words had been uttered.   
  
"I know you did," She said softly. "It was me I didn't love, for want of a better way to put it, not you. I was so eaten up with guilt that I couldn't enjoy anything. I think part of me thought I didn't deserve to be happy."   
  
"Will you tell me something?" He asked.   
  
"What?" She replied, never willing to agree to something before she knew what she was committing herself too.   
  
"Will you tell me exactly how you felt when you first found out you were pregnant?"   
  
"I'm not sure you'll really want to know, but yes, okay." Detaching herself from John, she stood up and began pacing, occasionally eating a grape or a slice of apple. From her clear inability to keep still, he could tell she was incredibly afraid of what she was about to say to him.   
  
"I remember," She began hesitantly. "I didn't go in to work that day, because I felt so awful." He could remember it like it was yesterday. The way she'd come downstairs as usual, and he'd put a mug of coffee down on the table in front of her. She'd stared at the coffee, all the colour draining from her face. The memory of the scrape of the chair over the stone flags in the kitchen, followed by her frantic dash upstairs to the bathroom, brought back flashes of the life they'd once had. "After you'd left for court," She continued, "I went back to bed and slept till lunchtime. I felt all right when I woke up, and I started thinking. John, you know how often we used to..."   
  
"Make love?" He supplied, amused at her difficulty in finding the right phrase.   
  
"Yes. The 'Just come in from work quickie' always had a certain extra frisson about it." He smiled, vividly remembering the urgency with which they'd sometimes greeted each other after a hard day's work. There'd always been something slightly naughty, yet incredibly sexy about that form of instant gratification for both of them. "What I'm saying is," Went on George, observing the smile that had lifted the corners of his mouth, "That even though I was on the pill, it wouldn't really have mattered how careful we were. We made love so often that it was bound to happen some time. But it wasn't something we'd really ever discussed. Okay, we knew that a family was something we both wanted some day, in the future, maybe, but other than that, it had never really come up as something to worry about." George lit another cigarette and kept on pacing. "I felt like time had stopped," She said, feeling the dread creeping over her like a thousand tiny butterflies. "When I realised the possibility, I felt detached, as if I was looking down on myself. The slightly crazy half of me wanted to run away, to hide. But the vaguely sensible, adult part of me knew that I needed to know. I couldn't wait, to allow my body to make its mind up. One way or the other, I just had to know. So, I went out and found the nearest chemist and bought a testing kit. I sat upstairs for hours after I read the result, just staring at it. I felt numb, confused, as if I was in freefall without a parachute. Even then, even at the beginning, I felt like my life was spinning out of my control."   
  
"I remember," Said John slowly, "You waited till late that night, till we were in bed. That's when you told me."   
  
"And you were so happy," Said George, her voice breaking and tears again rising to her eyes. "The last thing I could do was to even suggest that it wasn't what I thought I wanted. I couldn't do that to you." Tears had begun running down her face at this point. "How could I shatter the one dream you hadn't so far been able to fulfill." She moved to sit on the sofa, needing to keep her distance from him, but desperately wanting the comfort that being in his arms would provide. "I felt overwhelmed," She continued, "This thing that was growing inside me had taken over my entire life. Everything I did, everything I thought was tied up with a perfectly natural process that I didn't want to be any part of. For the last three months before Charlie was born, I barely looked in a mirror. I couldn't handle how much I'd changed. I knew that what I felt was wrong. I was supposed to be happy, to feel the same glorious sense of achievement and anticipation that I knew you did." John was aware of a lot of the feelings she'd had, from the first time they'd talked about this, but he could see that she needed to say it, so he let her continue. "The first time I looked at Charlie, the first time I held her, I knew. I knew that I didn't love this child who was part of me. I tried so hard to love her. Over the next few months, everything I did was in a desperate attempt to make myself love her, and all the time, I could feel the guilt becoming heavier, gradually pressing down on me till I thought it would flatten me altogether. You didn't know it till then, but starving myself has always been my reaction to stress, ever since I was fifteen. After Charlie was born, I didn't think I knew who I was. Not eating was my way of regaining something I knew, something I understood. I had to hide how I felt from you. I felt enough of a failure without you knowing what an utterly evil woman I was. I loathed everything I was in those days. I couldn't love my own daughter, I was going quietly crazy with all the feelings associated with that and what I was doing to myself, and I couldn't even maintain a vague sense of normality by sleeping with you. It hurt you so much that I didn't want you to touch me, that I couldn't even bare to have your arms round me. You tried to hide it, but I could still see it. I thought that any sign of love or affection from you would break me up all together, and I'd have to tell you what was really wrong with me, and in the end, that's what you did anyway. You're not as good at hiding your feelings as you think you are. When you finally forced me to tell you that I didn't love our daughter, the pain in your face almost did me in. It made it worse for a while, because I knew I'd hurt you immeasurably. But you didn't even reproach me for it, not outwardly anyway." She went quiet for a moment, her words seeming to have dried up in favour of the increased flow of her tears. "I'm so, so sorry," She said eventually, the grip on her control inexorably slipping, like that of a person's fingers after hours of clinging to a cliff edge. She looked so vulnerable, so defenceless, that he had an overwhelming urge to hold her close, to attempt to take some of the pain away.   
  
"come here," He said, but she shook her head, feeling as she had all those years ago, that she didn't deserve any comfort from him. "come on," He said gently, not taking no for an answer. She got up, and slowly walked over to him, still not altogether sure if she should. He took her hand, and pulled her down beside him, wrapping his arms round her.   
  
"I, I promised myself that, that I wouldn't do this," She said between sobs, her whole body wracked with the pain that had been festering for too long. He just held her, stroking her hair and allowing her the freedom to really give way. He didn't attempt to calm her down at first, knowing that she needed to do this, that she needed to fall apart completely before she began putting herself back together again. She clung to him, as if fearing that he would let her slip below the surface, never again to be truly sane. George had been close to cracking for a long time now, and he knew that this forceful breaking open of her soul was just the beginning. Only in time would she be able to gather together the fragments of her self-respect in order to start replacing her outer shell. When she began to show signs of calming down, he lifted her face from where it rested against his chest, and said,   
  
"George, listen to me. You must stop blaming yourself for what happened with Charlie, you really must. No one can help the things they feel. You couldn't help feeling the way you did about her." He said all this in a slow, gently firm voice, which had the added bonus of slightly decreasing the level of violence in her gasps.   
  
"I wanted to love her," She said, "I really did."   
  
"I know you did," He said quietly. "But it doesn't always work like that. Just because you didn't, doesn't mean you failed."   
  
"don't be so bloody ridiculous!" She replied, utterly unable to accept his affirmation.   
  
"George, my real mother gave me up for adoption, either because she didn't want me or because she couldn't keep me. Either way, I don't blame her for it. You cannot force yourself to love someone, you just can't."   
  
"Why are you being so nice to me?" She asked, unconsciously uttering the same words she'd said to Jo the day before.   
  
"Because right now, you need me to be," He answered, "Because you are in serious danger of going right under, and I don't want you to do that. Don't hide from me, George. If nothing else, that's what I'm here for, it's what I'll always be here for. We didn't go through nearly nine years of marriage for nothing."   
  
"I don't deserve you," She said miserably. He turned her face towards him, and forced her to look him in the eye.   
  
"George, you went through an enormous amount of heartache for me, for the sole reason that you didn't want to deny me the opportunity to have a child. I'll always be indebted to you for that."   
  
"Please don't," She said flatly, "I don't want to hear it."   
  
"Maybe you don't, but you do need to hear it. You've beaten yourself up about this for far too long. It has got to stop. This form of punishment that you insist on putting yourself through, ends, now."   
  
"It's not quite that simple, John."   
  
"Why?"   
  
"It's like your addiction to women," She said, her voice becoming angry. "I stop eating because it makes me feel good, in a weird and twisted kind of way, and you go to bed with numerous, nameless women because it makes you feel good. You don't like thinking of yourself as an addict, do you," She said, observing the retreat in his face, "But that's what you are, that's what both of us are. Anorexia for me is a fallback, a prop, the one thing I can lean on when the rest of my life is out of sync, and if you are remotely honest with yourself, you'll admit that that's what having more one night stands than you've had hot dinners is for you. I'm not passing judgment on you, because I know that what I do is just as screwed up, if not more so. I introduced you to the need to pick up women, because I couldn't let you love me. You went through the motions of loving them because I was so consumed with everything I felt or didn't feel for Charlie that it didn't occur to me that I was hurting you in the process. But once everything did come to a head, and I discovered that it was okay to be loved again, you'd already got the taste for it. It was too easy for you to do. You liked a bit of nameless skirt because it was uncomplicated. I got used to it after a while, because I thought you'd always come back to me. When I was aware of your playing away, it hurt like hell, and when you came back, I tried to make the most of you. But I couldn't hold you anymore, and part of me thought it was my punishment for not loving the child you'd given me." She reached for the box of tissues on the coffee table and blew her nose. An inextricable feeling of sadness came over John when she said this. He had hurt her so much, by not trying to understand hard enough as to why she hadn't been able to let herself be loved by him.   
  
"I'm sorry," He said after a long silence.   
  
"I know," She said gently, "But if I've got to stop blaming myself for being such a failure as a mother, then you've got to stop pushing away the woman who loves you, in favour of instant, temporary gratification with every other woman going. Jo desperately wants to be the one woman in your life. You've just got to let her."   
  
"I didn't come here to talk about Jo," He said, feeling that George's probing was getting way too close to base.   
  
"I know you didn't, but I think you should. Jo told me about her termination." He visibly flinched, never having wanted George to know about this.   
  
"Not my finest hour," He said, and she could see the pain in his eyes.   
  
"No, not hers either," George replied. "I think that part of why she puts up with you," George continued after a short pause, "Is because maintaining a link with you, somehow allows her to maintain a link with her unborn child. She didn't say so, and I doubt whether she ever would, but I think that the feeling of not quite being able to let go is mixed up with how much she loves you."   
  
"I think she blamed me for it, for quite some time," Said John, "Even though it was her who had a husband and children, and it was her who really made that decision."   
  
"At the time, blaming you was probably far easier than blaming herself, and though I hate to have to point this out to you, she does, or did, have the fragment of a point." At his look of outrage, George held up a hand. "Just listen to me before you get on your high horse. Did what happened with Jo, ever have any effect on the way you were with other women? I mean, did it ever make you think that actually, there are, or at least can be consequences of going to bed with someone, no matter how brief the fling might be."   
  
"No, not really," He said, utterly shame faced. "Unless the woman I'm with brings it up as a problem, it's not something I ever really think about." George rolled her eyes.   
  
"Do you not perhaps think that there is the slightest possibility," She said slowly, as if to a child, "That what happened to Jo might easily have happened to any one or number of your subsequent conquests?" John went quiet.   
  
"If I started thinking like that," He replied eventually, "I'd wonder about every one of them, and that's something I can't afford to do. You're right, most of them don't mean anything to me. It's almost purely physical, like the normal, natural urge to consume food very occasionally," He said sternly, fixing her with his unwavering gaze, and attempting to transfer the focus of the conversation back to George. To shut him up on this subject, she ate the last slice of apple on the plate.   
  
"The baby you nearly had with Jo," Said George slowly, "Was the reason you objected so vehemently to Charlie's having a termination, wasn't it."   
  
"Yes, probably," He admitted, the force of the regret he'd felt at Charlie's decision hitting him anew. "Jo said that I was trying to make up for the past."   
  
"And were you?" She asked gently. He heaved a big sigh.   
  
"Yeah, maybe I was. I couldn't be strong for Jo when she needed me. You and me were getting divorced, I was trying to deal with looking after Charlie on my own, and because of Charlie, I'd moved in to teaching law rather than practicing it, which is how I met Jo in the first place. Taking on another commitment, just wasn't possible. Jo had a terminally ill husband, and two very young children plus her career to keep going. So, when she said she was thinking of having a termination, it seemed to be the obvious solution to a problem. I think I accepted the situation too easily. Jo's never said so, but I think she resented the matter-of-fact way I accepted what she decided to do. But it was her decision, George, I had to let her decide what she wanted. It was her body, not mine. I remember, she didn't say a word when I drove her home afterwards. We sat in the car outside her house. I tried to put my arms round her, but she wouldn't let me. She told me not to even think of trying to comfort her, because she didn't deserve it. For a long time after that, she did her best to avoid me, and would only give me the minimum amount of polite communication whenever she did have to speak to me. When her husband died, I tried to talk to her, just as a friend, but she told me to grow up and get over it." George couldn't help briefly smiling at this. "But as far as Jo is concerned, I never have," He said, and she could see the beginnings of him also coming apart at the seams. "I failed with Jo so spectacularly," Said John, "That when Charlie announced that she was going to do exactly the same thing, I had to fight for it, in the way I hadn't fought for Jo's baby."   
  
"You do understand why I had to support Charlie, don't you, John," Said George seriously.   
  
"I'm beginning to," He replied, not wanting his thoughts to continue down the path they were currently treading.   
  
"I remembered from when I discovered that I was pregnant, that above everything else, I was frightened, terrified that I wouldn't be able to look after this child that was growing inside me. So, when Charlie said that she wanted to have a termination and that she'd really thought it through, I knew that if there was one thing I could do for her, it was to help her through it. That wasn't an easy decision for her to make, but it was her decision, and if that's what she thought was right for her, then I had to support her." John's inner turmoil which had started at the introduction of the subject of terminations came to a head.   
  
"Did you ever think of doing that when you found out you were pregnant with Charlie?"   
  
"No, of course not," replied George, but perhaps a little too quickly.   
  
"Let me put it another way," Said John, wanting and not wanting an answer to this. "Is that what you wish you had done." George drew back from him slightly to examine his face.   
  
"I don't know," She said eventually, "I really can't answer that. At the time, that wasn't an option for me. You wanted a child so much, that I couldn't have taken that away from you. But yes, you could say that I supported Charlie because I wanted her to have the choices I didn't have."   
  
There was a long, awful pause, whilst they both digested what she'd just said.   
  
"I wish you'd told me how you felt at the time," He said, referring to when she'd found out they were expecting Charlie.   
  
"John, let's not go over all that again. You know why I didn't tell you, so let's just leave it at that." He played with a tendril of her blonde, slightly tousled hair. he could see that she was emotionally as well as physically exhausted, but there was still one area of painful memories that they hadn't yet touched on, and he knew it would be the most heavily guarded of all her "no go", areas.   
  
"There's something, that in all the time I've known you, you've never once talked about," He said conversationally, trying to keep all signs of gravity out of his tone. But she wasn't to be fooled. She went almost rigid, as if inwardly retreating from him, but she didn't speak, for fear of confirming what she thought he was talking about. "Tell me about your mother," He said gently. Even though she'd been half expecting it, she recoiled as if he'd slapped her. When she attempted to stand up, to move away from him, he kept his arm tightly round her, not allowing her to put any distance between them.   
  
"No, John," She said, her tone filled with frightened determination. "You are not making me do that."   
  
"Well, I think it's about time, don't you? After all, it must be thirty seven years since she died, and I've never once heard you voluntarily mention her."   
  
"John, I said no!" She asserted, with perhaps as much terrified frustration as Karen had pleaded with Fenner.   
  
"George, you have to," He said firmly. George capitulated, feeling thoroughly defeated, but with still one card to play.   
  
"Fine," She said icily, "I'll make you a deal. I talk about my mother, you talk about yours. Take it or leave it." Inwardly cursing himself for not having thought she would do this, he frowned, and after a moment's silence, said,   
  
"Okay, you have yourself a deal. But I must be crazy for agreeing to it." George was furious. She'd banked everything on him not wanting to remotely discuss the most painful memory he had, but he'd called her bluff. Wanting to get this over with as soon as possible, she said,   
  
"Well, quite what you want me to say about her, I don't know. My mother was killed in a car crash when I was ten. No one else involved, nobody's fault. Something I believe they call an accident. My father couldn't quite handle the thought of bringing me up alone, so when I was eleven, he sent me to boarding school, which was probably something of a relief to both of us. What more do you want?" Her tone was curt, emotionless, giving away nothing but the essential facts.   
  
"How did you feel?"   
  
"How the hell do you think I felt?" She demanded scornfully. "My mother was dead, and both me and my father wanted nothing to do with the constant memory that being around each other day after day would provide. He sent me to boarding school because he couldn't deal with the continual sight of me turning in to a replica of my mother, and the last thing I wanted was to stay in that house a moment longer than was absolutely necessary. I needed to be around new people, to be in a new place, anywhere that didn't persistently remind me of what I no longer had. My father doesn't know how to show affection, which is probably why I don't know how to do the same with Charlie."   
  
"You're still very angry about that, aren't you."   
  
"No, what I'm angry about, is that my mother wasn't there when I really could have done with her." George's voice had taken on the strangled quality that always heralded tears. But having started, she found she couldn't stop. "When I was growing up, I needed someone who could tell me what being a woman entailed, and when I was pregnant with Charlie, I needed her to tell me that it wasn't wrong to be frightened. for virtually the whole of my life, I've had to work all this out for myself. For the first four or five years after she died, I had no outlet for all the anger. It stayed inside, eating away at me, and sometimes making me feel like I'd never enjoy anything again. Then, when I was fifteen, I discovered that not eating gave me almost a sense of euphoria. Suddenly, I had control over one of the most fundamental parts of my life. I didn't do it in a big way back then, but starving myself for a couple of days here and there kept me going."   
  
"Did your father ever know about it?" he asked, feeling as though he was intruding on a private exhumation.   
  
"No, of course not," She said, the tears raining down her cheeks once again. "I think he might have suspected, over the years, but he's never said so. But do you know what hurts the most? She was a wonderful mother to me, I couldn't have asked for any better. But what happened with Charlie made me feel like I'd not only failed you and Charlie, but that I'd failed my mother as well. She did her best for me, and yet I couldn't do the same for my own daughter." She finished this outpouring in a flat, dead tone of voice that told John she'd reached rock bottom. Her far too visible ribcage no longer shuddered with the force of her grief, but she didn't seem able to stop the flow of tears. There wasn't anything he could say to her. It hadn't at all been her fault that she'd felt the way she had about Charlie, but he knew that asserting this one more time wouldn't go any way to making her feel better. He had no idea what George's mother would have thought of the situation, because he'd never met her, and he wasn't about to give George a whole load of empty platitudes, because he knew that she wouldn't listen to them. As she rested her head against his chest, he gently ran his fingers through her hair. After a significant silence, though she still couldn't stem her tears, she said,   
  
"Well, now it's your turn." She had both arms round him now, and could feel his flinch. "don't back out on me, John," She persisted, knowing that she didn't have the energy or force of will to make him do it. She sat up slightly, long enough to reach for some tissues from the box on the coffee table.   
  
"I was ten," He began, "And my sister was twelve. Mum was depressed, over what, I still don't know. She killed herself, with half a bottle of scotch and a whole load of sleeping pills." His voice had taken on the brittle quality George was only used to hearing in her own. He'd raised a hand, hovering in front of his face, as if to prevent her from seeing his torment. Gently, she lowered his hand, keeping it imprisoned in her own, softly caressing his knuckles with her thumb. She simply watched him, her soft, gentle gaze encouraging him to continue. "Dad, cut himself off from us. He was still there, but not somehow. You know how it is, when something like that happens, you seem to grow up over night."   
  
"What did you miss most about her?" Asked George quietly, and now it was his turn to be under the spotlight.   
  
"I, erm, I remember, there was a cupboard, under the stairs, where me and mum used to go when there was a storm. I can only have been about five or six." He turned his face away from her, half ashamed of revealing how vulnerable he felt.   
  
"Did you ever go back there, after she died?" He laughed mirthlessly, trying to avoid the onset of tears, but failing utterly.   
  
"I didn't ever want to come out," He said, the sorrow hitting George with the force of an oncoming train. He could no longer restrain his clear need to let out some of the grief which had been repressed for too many years. His whole body shuddered violently, as he fought for the control which was slipping through his fingers as sand falls through the hour glass of time. George reached up and wiped away one of his tears with a finger. Then, putting her arms round him, she did her best to offer him the kind of comfort he'd given so much of to her this day. "That's why I wanted Charlie so much," He said unsteadily. "I wanted to go back to that feeling of security and happiness I'd had before mum died." George really didn't know what to say. John had desperately needed to feel complete again, to have the type of family-orientated contentment that he'd lost with the death of his mother. But her lack of real love for Charlie, had meant that he couldn't achieve this. If she'd known all this at the time, George knew she would have been in a no win situation. If she'd said that she didn't want Charlie, then she would have been depriving him of the thing he craved. But in trying to give him his dream, she'd taken it away from him even more.   
  
"I'm sorry," She said, her tears joining his. "I just wish I could have given you what you wanted."   
  
"Hey, come on," He said, his voice slightly hoarse. "You did your best, and so did I. These things just happen." He knew it was a pretty feeble attempt to lighten the load for both of them, and they both knew it wouldn't help. When both their tears had dried, they sat close together, both immersed in private, self-destructive thoughts.   
  
A good while later, George shivered, and realised that the fire had burnt low. Looking up at the clock on the mantelpiece, she saw that it was early evening. They'd been circumnavigating the treacherous landscape of their emotions for some hours, and they were both exhausted.   
  
"You should go and see Jo," George said, feeling as though all positive feelings had left her for good.   
  
"Are you chucking me out?" He said, lifting an eyebrow at her.   
  
"Not as such," Said George, getting up to put another log on the fire. "But I think you need to be with someone who isn't a complete emotional wreck."   
  
"I'm not sure I want to be with anyone," He replied, also feeling distinctly shell-shocked after the day's revelations.   
  
"John, being alone is without doubt what I need right now. But it wouldn't do you any good, trust me."   
  
"If I do leave you alone," He said carefully, "I want a promise from you."   
  
"What?"   
  
"Promise me that you'll never do what my mother did." She had been standing by the fire, warming her chilled hands in front of the blaze. But she turned to face him, the guilty expression all too evident on her face.   
  
"I wouldn't," She said, a slight shake present in her voice. "And I can't believe you just said that."   
  
"Yes, you can," He replied dully, "Or you wouldn't look as guilty as you do." The thought of ending her miserable existence hadn't actually occurred to her as yet, but she knew that she was certainly low enough for it to have done eventually.   
  
"I'm not going to make you a promise I might not be able to keep," She said, all the desolation as prominent as her ribcage.   
  
"Then you can forget my leaving you on your own," He replied, just as skilled as her at digging his heels in. George rolled her eyes at the Monet above the fireplace.   
  
"John, please. I haven't got the energy to do anything more drastic than sleep." He studied her, taking in the enormous, terribly expressive eyes, the Channing bone structure, and the way the dressing-gown and nightdress seemed to drown her. She didn't look capable of anything more than sleep, and he just prayed that she wasn't fooling him.   
  
"fine," He said, deciding that even George wouldn't do something like this to him after what he'd just told her. "But I'll be checking up on you."   
  
"If you must," Said George wearily. When he stood up, she could see the patch of his shirt that had become stiff with the salt from her tears. As they were walking through the hall, he turned, and put his arms round her.   
  
"I love you," He said in to her hair.   
  
"No, you don't," Said George gently but firmly. "You love Jo, or at least, you should." But as he drove away, continually hoping that she would go straight back to bed and to sleep, he thought that yes, he did love George, and yet he knew he loved Jo. He couldn't help it, he loved both of them. George stood by the open front door, and watched his car disappear down the road. When she returned to the lounge, she reflected on what she'd said to John. Part of her wished she did have the energy and the willpower to end her fraught, struggling existence once and for all, but she knew she couldn't do that to John. She doubted whether or not he'd really meant it when he'd said he loved her, but she knew he thought he did.   
  
"You complete and utter bastard!" She said miserably in to the empty silence, knowing that yet again, she was doing what he wanted her to do, or in this case not doing what he didn't want her to do, because of how much she loved him. She couldn't bare the thought of hurting him even more than she had done already. But it was this and only this that prevented her from taking such a desperate course of action. 


	128. Part One Hundred And Twenty Eight

Part One hundred and Twenty Eight  
  
  
  
John was barely conscious of the twists and turns in his journey back to Jo's house, still less of the traffic on the road. The car was taking him from one destination to another, always travelling and never arriving, least of all under his direction. It had been his habit to gently slide the shutter down in his mind on everything that was contained in the woman's house he was leaving after the pleasures of the night were satisfied and to return to the welcoming soft arms of safety and security. When the mistress concerned happened to be George and his nearly wife was Jo then his neat compartmentalised way of thinking gave him some trouble in accommodating the new situation. But he was married to George, once and he had never placed a wedding ring on Jo's finger.   
  
His feelings were disturbed when the enormous cinemascope effect of the pain that George had lived with for years was played out before his eyes. He looked at himself as the lead actor who never understood his own lines, far less his leading lady's. Yet this was the name that George had used for Jo so why were the aristocratic cadences of George's voice echoing round in his head like a CD track that he couldn't switch off?  
  
"……….because I loathe losing control with anyone, but especially with you. I'm not entirely sure that I'll be able to stop crying……….." George had said to him.   
  
Just before his footsteps trod the last few paces to Jo's familiar front door and he let himself in, Mimi started barking joyfully at her master's return. John's spirits were lifted by this display of uncomplicated affection from Mimi, between the human and his pet, which his anchorless existence needed right now.   
  
As Jo followed after Mimi, she looked at John for the first visual cues of what had gone on. From long experience of John, she could always get a rough idea in those first few seconds, John was never as inscrutable as he fondly imagined himself to be. More than ever before, Jo could sense that she was John's shelter from the storms of life outside in the way that he stumbled in.   
  
"I hope that you kept your promise to go easy on George," Came that cool self-possessed voice that broke in on George's words.  
  
"Just don't ask, Jo," John's weary voice beseeched her with an accompanying hand gesture as he made his way to the nearest armchair in the straightest line possible. "I'm tired."  
  
He slumped down in its all embracing softness, his head thrown back against the high back of the very welcome support as the cushion served to begin the process of relaxing him.   
  
Jo moved soundlessly to the kitchen and made a cup of strong black coffee and placed it on the delicately carved mahogany side table beside John's armchair and waited for John to speak first. She would allow him just that amount of grace.   
  
"You know, Jo, there's so much about George that I really never knew," The words came at last. "Still, I think she's safe now."  
  
Jo sat silently sipping her own steaming hot cup of coffee while John gazed blankly at the geometrical symmetry of the overhead lamps, devising mental patterns that might mean something and bathing his eyes in the gentle glow as if he were seeking enlightenment.   
  
"…………You hate losing control just as much as I do. The difference is that I maintain the appearance of control by not eating, and you do it by screwing….." George's accusing words crowded in on his thoughts.   
  
"John, I think we need to talk," Jo's quiet voice stole its way into his half dreams.   
  
"What about?" John said guardedly. From his experience of women, these words had the deceptive appearance of the first wind blown fluffy white clouds before the storm clouds blew up from nowhere and obliterated the sun. He wasn't about to cut any deals after his experience of George's ruthless bargaining, even at her most emotionally down and out.  
  
"About you, about me and about George."  
  
"That would take half a lifetime," John's measured tones reflected a surface sheen of empty humour as a conversational decoration. "I have argued a mere quarter of a lifetime with George and have never got anywhere. He wished she would stop talking. Why do women always pick the worst moments, he groaned inwardly to himself. Outwardly, his self-deprecating smile kept his real feelings at bay.  
  
"That's because neither of you have stopped replaying the same stuck record. I've talked a lot to George recently and I may know things you don't know that I know."  
  
Ordinarily, such flights of logic would be easily within John's mental dominion but not today. Jo's words seemed to slither and slide their way inside his brain with no discernable pattern.  
  
"Why do women talk so much?"   
  
"Why do men talk so little?"   
  
The metaphorical clash of metal of sword glancing against sword rang round the room with this lightning thrust and parry.  
  
"We ought to discuss this in a civilised manner as I'm sure you agree, Jo. You appear to have something on your mind," John spoke at last after draining the last drops from his coffee. Something told him he was going to need something to rally his flagging energies.  
  
Jo smiled to herself as she saw John try to shift the agenda away from the emotional, the disagreeable. Very good John, but it doesn't quite work this time.   
  
"There are no law books or precedents that we can hide behind this time, John. It is insidious the way that our profession can affect our private lives. It makes us combative, very fluid in our thinking, but afraid to face the world when stripped of our props like the gown and the wig," Jo stated in her understated manner.  
  
"That would be a very entertaining fantasy come true, Jo, and not just these outer garments. You are engaging my enthusiasm and interest," John's voice became firmer and more confident being thankful that the one faculty within him could be roused when all else failed him and, in doing so, enabled him to get a grip on his ability to argue.  
  
"Not everything can be reduced to sex, John. Save that line for your casual flings," Jo sternly admonished John in the tones of a more than averagely bossy governess.  
  
Being stuck in his armchair while Jo stood foursquare facing him brought an uncomfortable change in spatial relationships from the normal Monday to Friday roles of judge's throne and Jo's and George's positions on the opposite wing of the same common bench below him while John was elevated up on high. An armchair was a place to relax in, listening to music and not a rampart from which to defend his honour, or himself.   
  
"For a start, John, do you really know and can you really feel for George, the full extent of the guilt she has felt from when you slept with her recently to the point of becoming anorexic?"   
  
That opening first shot that started the battle brought John up short especially the ugly sounds of the consonants of the last word and the way it brutally named it as an illness, not George's eating problem.   
  
"I didn't know you knew that. I would not normally consider George the confiding type, least of all to you. The word you use is perhaps going a little bit too far," John pitched his reply in a manner too calm, too measured and dispassionate as if he were drawing conclusions from forensic evidence in a court case in a summing up speech.  
  
"Why did you sleep with George in the first place?" Jo's equally calm reply changed tacks to asking one question at a time rather than three.  
  
"George came round to see me totally out of the blue. Quite why she did so is unclear as she can be inscrutable."  
  
"Are you talking as a lover or as a judge?" Jo pursued, shaking her head without thinking. She was not buying this from John of all men and the sense of incredulity in her voice accentuated as she continued. "I really wonder about you, John, considering the way you are able to almost intuitively plumb your way to the depths of any criminal case where no other judge can penetrate. Are you saying that your powers deserted you in personal matters, not with some stranger, but with your ex wife who you lived with for many years."   
  
"You know I'm not good in the matters of the heart. In the law, everything has its place. It is all circumscribed and defined, as well you know, but the emotional world manages to drag me down and I cannot secure a grip while I'm falling." John's voice shook slightly under this confession as he stood up and made his way to the drinks cabinet where Jo's eyes could not follow him.  
  
"Can I pour you a drink, Jo?" He asked politely in his best drawing-room manner.  
  
"Nothing for me, John. You've said those very words before to me about your feelings and I've ended up feeling sorry for you." Jo's voice shook as she recalled that rare past fleeting moment of John showing his vulnerability. "but this time, I'm entitled to consider my own feelings also. You're not escaping from me this time," She finally warned in a harder tone of voice than John was accustomed to hearing at rare moments like this.  
  
"I remember when you said those words, John, when you were in danger of being ensnared by Lady Rochester and you were falling head over heels for her. All the time, she was carrying on an affair with Giles Rowley who pretended to be only her cousin and both were using you for their own ends."  
  
"That was an entirely different set of circumstances, Jo. That precious pair of conspirators were engaged in fleecing the publishing company of Dorothy Lomax. With your help, we ensured justice for her and the full restitution of the proceeds of the property that was stolen from her." John's far more relaxed, confident decisive tones unreeled the relevant facts from his memory and his words were lined up in perfect formation like the changing of the guards outside Buckingham Palace. He had hit his stride and his mind was sharp and clear again.  
  
"Coming back to the matter of George, you do know that she has an intermittent history of anorexia," And here Jo laid careful stress on the word before pausing and giving John the chance to disagree with her choice of word. "I am talking from what she directly told me herself. It only takes a particularly stressful event to bring it on. She reacted that way when Charlie was born when she felt as if she were some monstrous and evil freak of nature because she felt that she couldn't love her child and everything and everyone around you tells you that it is expected of a woman to be glowing and radiant after the birth of a child. I know the reality of that, believe me, except that I was luckier than her in my experience and of the support that I got at the time."   
  
At that point, Jo's eyes looked straight into his and paused as distant memories of stumbling out of bed feeling half dead while her baby was crying in his cot for whatever her senses worked out would comfort this new creature she had brought into the world, nappy change or wind. It was not like how the magazines made it out to be and perfect mothers do not spring into existence from nowhere. She was never more grateful for undisturbed nights as in those years so she could easily imagine how a stressed out, self-hating George would react.  
  
"…………and you were so happy. The last thing I could do was to even suggest that it wasn't what I thought I wanted. I couldn't do that to you." George's absent voice took up the attack on John's conscience where Jo had left off.   
  
"Coming back to the present, it's a fact that George reacted the same way after she slept with you. In a strange way, I'm not about to complain about George or go to scratch her eyes out as I might have done. We both know very well that you are the last man to pass up the chance of going to bed with an available, beautiful woman, no matter what ties you may have elsewhere. Or as tied as much as you ever feel that you can be," Jo finished on a sarcastic, accusing note.  
  
John's feeling of discomfort or something like that was welling up inside him but the flow of emotion pulsing through his system washed up against the unbreakable, insoluble dam of the very thing that made him function best in the world, the ability not to show his emotions. After all, he had explained to a court once that judges feel emotions the same way as any other human being, it's just that they don't show them. It was life's irony that this quality that made John such a fine judge made it hardest for him to deal with matters of the heart. The source of his discomfort, no, pain was that this was the second woman who charged him of this in a very short space of time. Both women were the closest to him and the most real to him of all the sycophants at Monty Everard's party. There was swelling in him, a pain so intense that he could not utter or even give it a name. He could only give shape to the irrelevant thought that this was the first time in his life that he realised what a formidable barrister Jo Mills was, this being the first time that he had appeared before her and it would be interesting to speculate how she would appear if she became a judge. Unfortunately for John's reputation, the expression on his face remained fixed in the faint half smile.  
  
"You know what I'm like, Jo," He pleaded with Jo for mercy. "I have a problem in forming long term relationships. That's why I went to see the………"  
  
"We shall come to the matter of Rachel Crawchek later on, John. It's your singular lack of remorse in the casual way you slept with George that I just don't understand," Jo led off in her firmest inquisitorial manner, which conveyed a very ominous sense of what she had in store for John. A split second later, she tried an exaggerated version of her act as prosecuting council, which fell apart as the hurt in her as a woman overtook her.   
  
"I don't understand why your sense of justice extends only as far as your belt buckle," She finished in a harder tone as years spent, sometimes in wonder, other times in hurt and frustration in trying to work out the enigma that was John Deed suddenly took human form in a flash of enlightenment.  
  
"You've been spending far too much time with George," John muttered in a low voice, not daring to look at Jo.  
  
"Too much time, John? In what way?" Jo articulated softly and calmly. She felt all right again but she did not know how long this would last. She felt driven by some compulsion to see this matter through to the end but could not say what that end looked like, felt like or described itself as. Only intuition was her uncertain guide.  
  
"It's just that I can imagine George coming out with a crack like that but not you. I've not know you to indulge in risqué humour."  
  
"John, this is a side issue," Jo firmly closed off that tempting detour which she knew that John was deliberately tempting her with. "As judge, you are the most chivalrous, honourable, upright, incorruptible man who will stand up to injustice to the point of recklessness that makes me feel afraid, even protective for you," and here Jo let the armour drop for a split second, smiling softly and fondly at him with all the admiration and love she had ever felt for him. "I see the man before me, who will dare take on whatever fire breathing dragon there is around. I hear you give your word as a judge and that means more to me than anyone in my living memory. I see that very same man in my private life, and if I were naïve enough to ask you to give your same word not to chase after another woman and you gave it, I wouldn't believe it not even if you swore over half a dozen bibles. So I ask you, John, why are you like that?"  
  
To Jo's eyes, John visibly closed off within himself. To John, he was throwing up the ultimate safety defence from when he was back at his first boarding school and he was taunted about being the "baker's boy" with the funny accent before he assumed the languid assured tones of those around him and became with the others but not of them. Nobody could get at him when he dug down into his deepest, most secure emotional bunker.   
  
"Do you have to talk about this right now, Jo? I was rather looking forward to seeing you. Coming to your home is a haven for me, for the ideal woman in my life…….."   
  
"………I love you," the memory of his voice came to temporarily haunt him as that other well known voice of George pursued him, saying "No, you don't. You love Jo, or at least, you should………."  
  
"……….beautiful, intelligent, honourable, compassionate…."  
  
"If you really consider that I am so perfect, then why do you need to chase after other women?" Jo accused him.   
  
"If I am as incorrigible as you seem to suggest, I wonder then why you continue to put up with me. I have considered that you see me as a link between the child we could have had together, something to hold onto through me."   
  
"You're not being fair, John," the hurt in Jo's voice and tears in her eyes came immediately to the surface and reproached him, unafraid to expose her emotional nakedness. This had unsettled her as she was not expecting the one question which had sneaked its way through her guard at a time when she was at her most emotionally open to sense the first glimmerings of her rescue attempt on John's humanity through his impossibly well guarded reserve.   
  
"All of us at times, regrettably have to face questions that make us feel uncomfortable. I learned that lesson recently," He bit his tongue off to stop referring back to the ill-starred therapy where he had in reality picked this gem of wisdom up from.  
  
"All right, John, it's confession time for me now," Jo exclaimed with the sensation that she was blindly jumping off a bridge and hoping that an invisible hand would catch her and save her. "There aren't many days when I don't think of the child we could have had together and how it would have changed our lives, for the better, I would like to think. What he or she would have been like, I have absolutely no idea. I still get those dreams even after all these years, so, yes, this is part of the reason why I haven't given up on you yet as I could have done. The other reasons are what you meant to me as a young woman, that hero, that exemplar, to use those words, of what I could be. That goes far deeper than casual sex or any other kind of sex."  
  
Jo paused while she regained her breath and impatiently pulled back a stray lock of hair, which had flicked into her eye.   
  
At that point, unknown to Jo, the absent George came to the rescue.  
  
"………..But if I've got to stop blaming myself for being such a failure as a mother, then you've got to stop pushing away the woman who loves you, in favour of instant, temporary gratification with every other woman going. Jo desperately wants to be the one woman in your life. You've just got to let her……….."   
  
"I want to talk about everything now to make up for what we should have talked about after all the years we've known each other. Part of the story involves George and she can't be frozen out of it. I can see that now I've got a perspective on her side of the story which I never knew before. So, to answer your earlier question, john," and here, Jo lit a much needed cigarette and exhaled deeply. "We have to talk because there is no time like the present. Now it's your turn," Jo finished on a hard, determined note.  
  
It was the first time like this that john wished that he had the same handy theatrical prop like Jo and George had of the cigarette ritual. It enabled the actor to play for a brief pause to think in the middle of a confrontation while the cigarette was lit and the smoke slowly inhaled and exhaled. He started to feel very naked and uncomfortable, an unwelcome first for him. His effortless assurance that his facility with words and lightning quick mental reflexes was being tested and strained to the limit. It was ironical that his opponent was his sometime girlfriend, the woman who had been his pupil, who had been schooled in his values, his style, and his visions.   
  
"You risked your career, everything you had worked for in securing justice for the woman and children that that James Brooklyns had casually knocked down and killed, hoping to walk away thanks to friends in high places in the Home office. Yet when you told me that you had slept with your therapist you sounded equally casual, so cold, not even apologetic. What were you thinking about when you were speaking? It's about time you explained it to me because that really hurt, John, more than anything you have ever done."  
  
Jo's blue, intense eyes were edged with tears and her lower lip was trembling as she relived in that moment all the pain she had felt that day. Of all the pain she had gone through, that was the worst, as she never expected that one. John had an expression on his face of a wry twisted grin of embarrassment. Then, he raised his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders and the blue eyes which had fearlessly looked Attorney Generals in the eye, fell to the floor. It was as if a cold stranger standing behind him was the dispassionate observer of his own confusion, gagging him in the name of some undefined sense of honour. The chaos within him was indescribable and unable to be pinned down by mere words. Uppermost in his mind was the fear that held him in its grip that, if he gave way to emotion, the flood of emotion would carry him away and he would be lost.  
  
'I am and I am not- freeze and yet I burn  
  
Since from myself, my other self I turn  
  
My care is like my shadow in the sun-  
  
Follows my flying- flies when I pursue it  
  
Stands and lives by me, does what I have done."  
  
These words he had read in a book when he was young, came crazily back to his mind from nowhere. They were attributed to Queen Elizabeth the First but he could never make sense of them at the time.  
  
"I merely wanted to tell you the truth and to not deceive you but the wrong words came out. Not just wrong but inappropriate," John uttered very slowly, artificially and painfully.  
  
"Why did you pick an attractive therapist?" Jo asked very slowly and softly. "Was it to give you a get out if it became too tough?"  
  
John breathed deeply many times as if his lungs couldn't get enough of the air he needed to stop him choking on himself. Finally, he nodded very emphatically, as he was incapable of getting that one word to pass out of his mouth until the bottled up pressure was gradually released out of him and the tension eased.  
  
"Yes, Jo," Came the merest sigh from him but it was enough.  
  
"Typical. All that talk about 'the foundations being laid' You really convinced me at the time."  
  
John looked round the room in bewilderment. Was it only a few hours since he'd driven here from George's house? The intensity of the confrontation had derailed his sense of time and any other mental structure that bound him to his sense of place in the world around him. The woman who so terrifyingly confronted him with parts of himself that he had never wanted to face was this very familiar woman whom he had known for a lifetime. Just like George, when he came to think of it.  
  
"So what went wrong, John? Come on, you can tell me. I'm not that frightening, surely."  
  
"Tell that to the opposing barristers and witnesses you have cross examined in your time," John laughed, a little shakily but at least all that nightmare tension had eased.  
  
"She made me lose control, Jo," John volunteered and, as Jo noted unprompted for once in his life. "She made me talk about the death of my mother. I wasn't ready for it and she ended the session just at that point."  
  
"So you were left dangling?" Jo asked, all the soft and gentle kindness in her voice expressing all the natural sympathy in her nature.  
  
John nodded emphatically part of himself hating himself at this confession of an innermost feeling that his enormous intellect had conspired so brilliantly to keep at bay yet being intensely relieved at the same time.   
  
"You should let a woman look after you occasionally when reason is not enough," Jo said gently, sitting on the chair arm and her fingertips gently brushing his forehead. It felt clammier than she had expected even from the time that she knew him.  
  
It came to him that he had not let a woman do that for him since his mother died but he forebore to mention that one. He had confessed that very painfully to George and once was enough in one day.   
  
"Perhaps we should get married, after all," John said, half a question in his voice.  
  
"Not so fast, John," Jo said, detaching his outstretched hand from her. "You forget George. I know only too well enough from my father's alcoholism to be wary of believing in quick cures and instant therapy."  
  
"You're my therapy, Jo," John announced, some of his smugness returning.  
  
"That is because you're feeling randy, John. It's as if you are either addicted to sex, or else your word on anything south of your belt buckle can't be trusted. So you can take your choice," Jo gently scolded him but her body language not breaking that fragile sense of intimacy but presented him with a very tricky 'either/or' formulation which brought him up short. Not the least reason for this was that this was one of his best ploys as a barrister that he had ever taught her.  
  
"It's like your addiction to women," the absent George echoed. "You go to bed with numerous, nameless women because it makes you feel good. You don't like thinking of yourself as an addict, do you? But that's what you are, that's what both of us are.  
  
"There's a few more things in my mind before I've done with you, John Deed. For a start, George is still very obviously in love with you and always has been however much she's denied it. She's a bit like you," Jo said with a hint of flirtation and playfulness as surface softening for the very serious point that she was getting across. "There's one thing I was going to ask you. When you went to the hospital when Charlie was born, how did you feel?"  
  
An unrestrained whole souled soft smile illuminated his face and expressed the full depths of his very real love for Charlie.  
  
"That was one of the best things that ever happened in my life. I vowed to myself that I was going to make up with Charlie what was missing in my own upbringing. Was there anything wrong in that?" John asked with a touch of suspicion.  
  
"Nothing wrong in that at all," Jo's tender voice stroked the fretful child within John that wanted to be reassured. "You've done very well in bringing up Charlie. She's pretty stable and any parent who can say that about their child must have done very well. The only question I was going to ask you is, how did George react to the birth?"  
  
John searched his memory but this was a long ago detail, which his normally faultless memory failed to retrieve. Mind you, he used his memory very largely for obscure points of law that he had researched at some time or other and was less used for personal matters.  
  
"She was very quiet afterwards and didn't have much to say while her father and I talked nine to the dozen. Couldn't get a word in edgeways, I should think."  
  
Jo's playfully mock scornful glance milked the vast improbability of George being ever crowded out by two men from loudly and forcibly expressing her feelings on any aspect of life, profound or trivial.  
  
"And what was George like during the birth?"   
  
"I think I was called every name under the sun including some I hadn't heard of. For a barrister, she has an amazingly extensive gutter-bred vocabulary."  
  
A wide grin spread across Jo's face, all the wider for the release of all the tension that had built up inside her. She could imagine George cursing the nurses, the sisters, the administration of the hospital from top to bottom, John most of all for getting her into the situation, conveniently forgetting her very willing and eager assistance, but most of all for being the concerned and very modern father to be. She judged that the noise level would have carried up to the next floor of the hospital or two. The sheer force of her cursing would have pushed Charlie out into the world in her desperation to get her figure back to where she wanted. Joe Channing would, needless to say, have taken positive advantage of being a 'die hard, stick in the mud' and would have resolutely stayed away until after the birth.  
  
"I suppose she didn't take to motherhood," John added in a halting fashion as he rewrote yet another part of his past history.   
  
"I rather think that you're right at that, John," Jo retorted in her best exaggeratedly understated fashion.  
  
As the conversation petered out and an enormous stillness descended which seemed to gently heal the psychic wounds, John's eyes blinked and his head slid sideways into a comfortable corner of the armchair. He was hugely tired from passing through an emotional combine harvester which had threshed him and beaten him all over.  
  
"You told me at the beginning that George was safe. How convinced are you?"  
  
"She said she wanted to sleep," John's mumble drifted half in, half out of his sleep.  
  
"And how convinced are you that she meant what she said?" Jo asked sharply.  
  
"Not very, but it was the best I could get out of her. You know what she's like," Came the frank but not very audible answer.  
  
Even though John's more tired than I've known him ever to be, he is learning at last to own up, Jo grinned to herself feeling satisfied with her handiwork.  
  
"Tell you what, John. I'll tuck you up in bed and I'll phone George tomorrow. You look totally done in."  
  
John let himself be led down the wobbly, endlessly long winding corridor to Jo's bedroom and by a process which he couldn't remember afterwards, he found himself lying in Jo's bed with the cool feel of the bedclothes tucked round him. Jo climbed in next to him and held him in her arms while he started to slide gratefully down into sleep.  
  
"I love you, Jo," John's sleepily mumbled into her ear.  
  
Jo felt incredibly touched and elevated by the half conscious John as this was the first time that he had uttered these words without it being part of a post-coital ritual for John and especially after what she had put him through. 


	129. Part One Hundred And Twenty Nine

Part One Hundred And Twenty Nine   
  
After John had left on the Saturday night, George had banked up the fire, put on some extremely soppy music and curled up on the sofa. She'd felt empty, flat, as if all her emotional and physical energy had been washed away. She didn't even have the energy to keep on crying. She'd peeled and eaten one of the kiwi fruits John had bought her, the juicy, green flesh delicately flecked with tiny black seeds. Did this represent the colours of her soul, she wondered idly? Did it show how she had been trying to live through the guilt and the pain for years, but how the black peppering of despair overshadowed what was underneath? Her thoughts drifted, as if tossed here and there at the whim of the tide, but always returning to what she'd said to John. She'd all but given him an assurance that she wouldn't go the same way as his mother had done, but oh, how she wanted to. She craved a release from the lifelong torment of being a failure as a mother, a failure as a daughter, a failure as a human being. Time and again she traced the inside of her left wrist, mapping the far too visible network of veins and arteries, both feeling and seeing the beat of the force of life spreading through her. These pathways of her body were so prominent that she could see the steady pulsing of the one and only thing that was keeping her alive. It was slightly quicker than it really ought to be, probably as a result of the enormous amount of cigarettes she'd smoked in the past couple of days. It's a well known fact that nicotine increases the heart rate and George had smoked enough recently to bring one back from the dead, never mind keep her own beating throughout her period of not eating. If there was a quick and simple way of burning away the guilt and the pain in the same way a surgeon will cortorise useless but still living blood vessels, she would grab it with both hands and hold on to it until she felt able to deal with life again. But as far as she could see, there wasn't. The only real solution to how she was feeling now was to irrevocably say goodbye to the world that she didn't want to be part of any more. But she couldn't do it, not to John, to Charlie, to her father, and not even to Jo. Was that it then, was there really no end to all this? But she considered that maybe this was her final punishment for every bad thing she'd ever felt or said or done, to not be able to find any reprieve, any cure for the emotional cancer that was gradually eating up her insides. On this worst of all her realisations that evening, she switched off the music, put a guard round the fire and went upstairs to bed. George had never spent much time thinking about whether or not there was a god, too many bad things had happened to make her think there really was such a being. But as she drifted to sleep in her enormous, lonely bed, she offered up a prayer to whoever was listening, pleading with them to allow her not to wake up.   
  
But George wasn't to get her wish. She was dragged abruptly back in to the land of the living about twelve hours after she'd gone to sleep, by the insistent ringing of the phone. Blindly stretching out a hand to the cordless that lay on the bedside table, she said,   
  
"Hello?" And Jo realised that she'd woken George from a much-needed sleep.   
  
"George, it's Jo. Did I wake you?"   
  
"Yes, you did," Replied George on a yawn. "What time is it?"   
  
"Nearly midday," Said Jo, briefly glancing at her watch.   
  
"That's all I seem to be able to do lately is sleep."   
  
"It's probably not a bad thing," Said Jo, realising that whilst George was asleep she wasn't thinking. "I just phoned to see how you are."   
  
"No," Replied George flatly. "You phoned to see if I was still alive."   
  
"Yes, partly," Conceded Jo.   
  
"He doesn't trust me, does he," Stated George in almost resigned despair.   
  
"No, not entirely," Replied Jo gently, neither of them needing to explain who they were talking about.   
  
"Well, you can tell him that I'm still here, still ticking, just utterly exhausted. How's John?" She asked tentatively.   
  
"He probably feels a bit like you do this morning. We had a very long overdue talk when he came here last night."   
  
"Oh, no, poor John," Said George, in sympathy with him, after having experienced Jo's version of the confessional on the Friday night. "Did you finish what I started?"   
  
"Yes, I think so. But it had to be done. He's been fairly quiet this morning but he's taken Mimi for a walk. Some thinking time might do him good."   
  
"Thinking's a very dangerous thing," Said George dryly, though Jo could hear the telltale hint of sincerity that told her just how scared George was of herself and her feelings.   
  
"Why?" Asked Jo gently, all the time aware that she was treading the thin line between persuading George to talk to her and pushing her away altogether by forever frightening her off.   
  
"I was being facetious."   
  
"George, I've seen you in court, remember. I know what you sound like when you're really being facetious. Tell me why thinking's a dangerous thing."   
  
"Jo, please don't do this," George pleaded, sounding as though she really didn't have the energy to fight any more.   
  
"George, let me make something clear to you," Said Jo, gently but firmly. "You have almost certainly ended up feeling as low and afraid and alone as you do, because you haven't talked anywhere near enough, if at all. Oh, if you're thinking literally, you do talk. Sometimes you say far too much, but never about what's really important." George was quiet for a moment, and Jo wondered if she'd gone too far.   
  
"It isn't quite that easy," George eventually said. "As you said, talking, or at least talking about what's really going on in my head, isn't something I do. I'm not sure that I've ever really known how to. No one even tried to get me to talk when my mother died, and not letting any of it out just became second nature to me. I'm sorry," She said, suddenly realising that she'd strayed in to the most heavily guarded area of her life. "I didn't mean to talk about that."   
  
"You should," Said Jo gently, sensing the raising of every barrier George could muster.   
  
"No," Said George, the fear in her voice all too evident.   
  
"Is that what John made you talk about yesterday?"   
  
"That, and just about everything else. But I don't think he'll be doing that again in a hurry."   
  
"Why?"   
  
"I made John a deal, a deal that he thought he could wriggle out of because he made the mistake of thinking I'd forget about him fulfilling his side of the bargain. He made me talk about my mother, so I made him talk about his."   
  
"Ah," Said Jo in realisation. "So that would explain why he looked so shell shocked when I saw him last night."   
  
"Yes." George went quiet for a moment, and Jo had the feeling that George badly wanted to say something to her, but that she either couldn't find quite the right words, or that she didn't have the courage to say it.   
  
"How do you feel now?" Jo asked gently, trying to prod George in to talking again.   
  
"Jo, you really don't want to hear this," Replied George, desperately trying to avoid putting her feelings in to words. Jo tentatively took a stab in the dark.   
  
"John told me," She said, reaching for a cigarette, "About the promise you wouldn't give him."   
  
"Oh," Said George, but retreating again in to silence. But she eventually said,   
  
"I, erm, I don't really want to be here." Jo couldn't help briefly rolling her eyes at the way George had avoided saying the far too real, far too frightening words, I want to die.   
  
"Why?" She asked, though she was fairly sure of the answer.   
  
"Because I'm so tired," She said in total despair. "I'm tired of being so depressed that it's an effort to get up in the morning. I'm tired of carrying around so many feelings that I just don't know how to deal with, and I'm tired of living," She finished on a somewhat angry note.   
  
"And the fact that John's already been through losing someone like that makes it harder, doesn't it."   
  
"Yes," Said George furiously. "Because I could never do that to him. So, I'm torn, because that's the only way I can see of finding some sort of release from all this, and yet I know I've got to stay. John would never forgive me if I did that to him, or to Charlie. After you made me talk for so long on Friday," She said, calming down a little. "I felt sort of cleansed, because I knew it had done me good. But now I just feel empty and full to cracking open all in one go. I feel like part of me doesn't have any feelings left, and the rest of me has too many to keep under control."   
  
"And that's why you stop eating, to have control over at least one part of your life."   
  
"I know, crazy, isn't it."   
  
"No, not really," Replied Jo. "It actually makes some kind of sense. But the only way you're going to get through this, is to learn to let what you're feeling out, rather than keeping it inside, where it'll only do you more harm."   
  
"I am so scared of doing that," George said in a slightly strangled voice.   
  
"I know," Said Jo gently. "But you've got to learn that it's not wrong to cry, it's not wrong to get angry, and it isn't wrong to need people. Sometimes, being held in a pair of strong, male arms is all it takes to make you feel sane again. But sometimes you need someone who's just that little bit removed, someone you can shout at, someone who won't automatically tell you that you shouldn't feel the way you do." After a short pause, George said,   
  
"Thank you. If that was meant as an offer, I might take you up on it some time."   
  
"You do that," Replied Jo. "But don't leave it too long. I will be keeping an eye on you."   
  
"What with you and John," Said George dryly, "I'll have no choice but to stay on the straight and narrow."   
  
"I hope so," Said Jo seriously. "What are you doing about work this week? Because I think you need some time to recover."   
  
"And it wouldn't exactly be fair to my clients if I'm only functioning on barely one cylinder. I can probably leave the rest of the current trial in the hands of one of my juniors, but I'll have to be back for the one that starts on Friday."   
  
"Okay, and George, please promise me something."   
  
"I don't do promises."   
  
"You will be able to do this one. Promise to call me if you just want someone to listen." After a moment's thought, George said,   
  
"I will." When George replaced the receiver a few minutes later, she thought that never, in her entire life had she ever felt so surreal. Jo, the woman whom up until very recently, George had loathed with a vengeance, had been transformed in to what George could only call a close friend. Like Karen, George had never especially gone in for female friends, maintaining her emotional independence at all and sometimes catastrophic costs. But here she was, in her late forties, finally beginning to open up to someone, and with the help of this someone else, to begin examining the dark recesses of her mind.   
  
When Jo put the phone down, she stood for a while, just looking out of her kitchen window at the back garden, attempting to marshal her thoughts. George had been thoroughly ashamed of feeling so low, and Jo just prayed that she could help her through it. George wasn't going to survive this latest downward spiral unless she learnt to ask for help. Jo filled the kettle for a cup of tea, and heard John returning with Mimi. As he opened the front door, she called,   
  
"John, is that you?" Mimi ran in to the kitchen, thinking that she could get to like this house. John followed at a more leisurely pace.   
  
"Hello," He said, putting his arms round Jo and giving her a kiss.   
  
"You look better than you did earlier," Jo observed.   
  
"Fresh October air is very invigorating, and I did need some time to think."   
  
"I phoned George," Said Jo, pouring them both a cup of tea.   
  
"How is she?" John asked guardedly.   
  
"I believe her words were, tell him I'm still here, still ticking, just exhausted."   
  
"Well, that's something, I suppose," He said dryly. "Do you think she'll be all right?"   
  
"In time, yes. But there's an awful lot about herself that she needs to come to terms with, like you," Jo finished, turning to face him and putting her arms round him.   
  
"I love you," He said in to her hair.   
  
"And though it's given me more heartache than I ever thought possible," she said, between kisses, "I love you too."   
  
"Can we go to bed?" He asked after a little while.   
  
"Oh, you feel that good, do you?" She quipped, a light dancing in her eyes.   
  
"I need you," He said, his voice deep with arousal.   
  
"I'll have to see what I can do about that then, won't I," She replied, leading his hand to the buttons of her blouse. Clothes were rapidly discarded as they progressed from kitchen to bedroom, both of them craving some kind of release from the tension that had been building up since Friday. It had only been a few days since they'd last made love, but they were hungry for each other, desperate to reclaim the part of their relationship that had never been called in to question. Their passion for each other was almost furious, John wanting to prove to Jo how much he loved her, and Jo wanting to show John that she was just as good in bed as George. When he finally entered her after some extensive foreplay, she wrapped her arms and legs round him, as if afraid he would leave her.   
  
"I feel like you're putting your mark on me," He said, angling his hips to hit her G spot which made her gasp.   
  
"How do you know I'm not," she countered, with a squeeze of her internal muscles that spurred him on to further endeavour.   
  
"Do that again and I won't last much longer," He said, reaching a hand in between them to give her clit some attention. When they eventually went over the edge together, Jo found herself crying out his name, not something she usually did, normally being fairly quiet when it came to bed. But she couldn't help it. She loved this man, no matter what he did, and she knew she always would.   
  
As they lay afterwards, their breathing gradually returning to normal, Jo wasn't the only one who knew there had been something different about that time. John had felt it too. The way her body had been laying its claim on his, the way she'd called his name, and the slightly wicked grin on her face when he'd told her to stop squeezing him, which had reminded him fleetingly of George. After a while, he traced a finger delicately over her breast and said,   
  
"You're beautiful." A soft, lazy smile crossed Jo's face.   
  
"Ah," She said, her voice resonating with the kind of deep, utterly assured serenity that only ever follows particularly good loving. "But was I more beautiful to you when you were having an affair, and when being with me was wrong." He stared at her.   
  
"No, not at all," He said, after a moment's deliberation. "I've always thought you were beautiful. Why do you ask?"   
  
"Because sometimes," She said, turning on to her side and facing him. "I think that's why you stray so much. Being who and what you are, means that you have to always uphold what is good, what is right, both morally and legally. But occasionally, you need to experience the feeling of being bad, which is why having a fling or a one night stand with someone you shouldn't, is so attractive to you."   
  
"And where did you dig up that little piece of wisdom?" he asked dryly.   
  
"I didn't," She replied succinctly, "It just occurred to me. That's why I think that whilst you're not, professionally, allowed to be involved with me, I'm still attractive to you."   
  
"You, will always be attractive to me," He said, putting his arms round her.   
  
"I'd like to believe it, John," She said, "But your word on this isn't enough. You've still got so many unresolved feelings about a lot of things, but especially George, and until at least some of that is sorted out, I couldn't expect you to make any kind of a commitment to me, whether official or otherwise."   
  
"Can we not talk about George when we're in bed," He said firmly, which made Jo smile.   
  
"Why," She asked with a twinkle in her eye, "Haven't you ever talked about me when you've been in bed with George?" John was about to open his mouth to say no, when he remembered the very last time he had been in bed with George and they had talked about Jo.   
  
"Hmmm, I did wonder," Said Jo dryly, on receiving no answer from him. "For that," She said, kissing him, "You can go and pour me a glass of wine." Grumbling about being under the thumb, never mind how unofficial this relationship was, he got out of bed and strolled towards the kitchen. When she heard him laugh, she called,   
  
"What?" He returned to the bedroom in a few minutes, carrying two glasses of wine.   
  
"I'm glad Mark didn't come home unannounced," He said, a wide grin on his face. "Mimi was obviously bored, because I found her lying in the hall, chewing up your bra." Jo laughed and took her glass from him.   
  
"Typical," She said, "Notice how she didn't chew anything of yours."   
  
"She wouldn't dare," Said John, getting back in to bed. "She knows who feeds her."   
  
A couple of hours later, when she was cooking dinner and John was in the shower, Jo put on a CD, the music heightening the post-coital glow which made her feel lighter of heart than she had done for some time. Yes, she was still very worried about George, and all three of them still had a lot of ground to cover before any semblance of normality could be reached. But for now, Jo felt content. As she chopped some vegetables, the words of one particular song caught her ear and she stopped to listen.   
  
"You know you could've been a gambler,   
  
Whose luck was running low,   
  
Or just another drifter,   
  
Without a single place to go.   
  
You could have been a broken dreamer,  
  
Without a penny to your name.   
  
I would've loved you, I would have loved you,   
  
Just the same."   
  
This perfectly described how she felt about John. She loved him, for all his faults, and with a blinding flash of clarity, she knew that she was prepared to try anything to keep him. She didn't know if the possibility that had just occurred to her would work, but if it did, she might at last be able to trust him. If she could pull this off, they might one day all be happy.   
  
"No it really didn't matter,   
  
Who you'd been or what you'd done,   
  
Where we met or when it happened,   
  
You'd still be the one.   
  
There's no way to know the future,   
  
But one thing will never change.   
  
I'm gonna love you, I'm gonna love you,   
  
Just the same." 


	130. Part One Hundred And Thirty

Part One Hundred and Thirty  
  
The blustery weather outside the warmth of Lauren's car and the bareness of the criss cross winter pattern of bare branches whipping backwards and forward could never transmit the bleakness of the weather into her soul, not the way she was feeling.   
  
Slow moving, luxuriant images floated past Lauren's dreaming mind of her weekend with Cassie and Roisin, which were irrevocably woven, into her flowering senses. For the first time in her life, she felt at ease with herself and with her body. She marvelled at the one good choice and chance in her life where she had reached out deliberately and consciously to drink of the heady sapphic sexual cocktail which half jokingly, half nervously, she had merely sipped at in the past. It made all her past life seem like some manic, fast moving charade of Atkins hardness and control. She saw her normal everyday routine as one that was powered on cranked up feelings of aggression that pulsed through her to keep control of herself and others and be in command at all times. Such a life held no sway, had no meaning for her for the gentleness and softness of the two women with whom she had shared their bed. She thought tenderly and affectionately of her two friends who had been so patient of the past crazy actions, who had been there for her and had gently and lovingly eased her half willing entry into a new life. On the second night, she was bolder in expressing her desires, in words spoken or unspoken and the lovemaking was as soft and gentle as the texture of their skins, rising naturally to a climax which made her feel as good about feeling loved as she did about making love to the others.   
  
  
  
It was as if she had an 'out of body, out of mind' experience which had taken her to a different planet somewhere that the street tough Lauren Atkins had never been before.   
  
Yvonne's sharp ears picked up the faint creak of the front door opening and Lauren's distinctive footsteps clicking on the tiled floor. To her surprise, the sounds made straight for her direction rather than fade away as she headed upstairs to her bedroom. The slightly dishevelled woman who carelessly flung herself onto the settee, sprawling generously across it was not the very tense, constrained Lauren of a few days ago who sat bolt upright, keeping to her space in a tight, constrained manner.  
  
This woman had the faraway look in her eyes of someone who had been on a long journey and indeed she had been.  
  
"Been out on the town, Lauren?" Yvonne asked after having given her the invisible 'once over' from behind her guarded eyelids. It paid her, she thought to herself, not to rush Lauren but to wait for her to spill the beans.  
  
"Only at Cassie's and Roisin's," Lauren volunteered lightly. She peered all round her in a totally unhurried fashion as she gradually absorbed the details of the main living room, which ought to have been familiar and everyday to her. Instead, everything looked as if it was viewed from looking the wrong way through a telescope, appearing infinitely far away from her. For the first time in ages, she smiled at Yvonne.  
  
"A bit of normality round there will do you some good," Yvonne nodded approvingly. "There's something like the two of them and their kids that takes me back to when you and Ritchie were younger."  
  
"Something like that, Mum," Lauren responded straight-faced. She hurried on to say the words she knew that she had to say.  
  
"Don't ask me why but after that, I feel we should talk some more about Fenner's death. Let's face it, first time around, the way I was talking sounded like I should have been certified. The two of us have kept our mouths shut since I told you about it and it's not doing either of us any good."  
  
Yvonne was pleasantly surprised by the very leisurely, level tones in which Lauren spoke to her which was a million miles away from the tense, staccato tones of before. The indefinable change in the expression on Yvonne's face gave Lauren the encouragement to continue.  
  
"All I'm worried about is that you've done something which you'll feel like kicking yourself for later on," Said Yvonne in her softer more protective tone. A tiny part of her reproached herself that that was all she had thought of at the time and she felt more than a twinge of remorse that Karen had been left out of her area of concern. Still, there was no time for that now.  
  
"Fenner ain't worth killing, not if you go down for it and you end up behind prison bars instead of me. I don't want you to go through the same shit that I went through in my time at Larkhall. You've been close to what was going on there but not close enough. Believe me."  
  
"I'd better show you the last note I got from Ritchie which may explain a few things you didn't know and why I set out to kill Fenner."   
  
The words came out of Lauren's mouth without her thinking about it as the thoughts formed themselves, ready made, in her mind. She had locked tight into her mind the knowledge of that note and now was the time for opening it up.   
  
While Lauren dashed upstairs to fetch the note from her bedroom, Yvonne looked around in the depths of the bureau for the letter that Ritchie had written to her. Her fingers eased out the folded over note on 'prison issue' paper and found it right at the bottom of a small drawer she thought ruefully ought to be marked 'happy memories' as a spasm of pain ran through her as it hit her what she had lost in Karen. She could see before her very eyes the alluring sight of her mane of tousled, golden hair, those perfectly carved cheekbones and that challenging quizzical smile. The tough side of her crushed her eyelids tight to blind herself to what was too painful to deal with. This was no time to dream of what might have been.   
  
"Dear Lauren,   
  
……………I can't ask Mum for what I need you to do, because she won't do it. She never was a real Atkins, only in name. But you and me, Lauren, we've got Charlie Atkins' blood in us all the way. Lauren, I need you to get rid of Fenner for me. ………………. Lauren, Fenner did rape Karen, I know he did. You don't sleep with as many women as I have, without knowing when something just isn't right. Lauren, a bit of me loved her. I know that's not how it was supposed to be, but I did, probably still do. She didn't deserve what I did to her. But I can't put any of that right now. This is why I'm asking you to get Fenner out of the picture for good. I can't put right the things I've done, but if you'll do this one thing for me, I can take away one of the worst things that's ever happened to her. You know that Fenner deserves a dose of the Atkins justice as well as I do. Please do this for me, Lauren, please. Don't tell Mum I've asked you. She's stayed on the straight and narrow since she got out, and we both know she won't be in favour of doing what's right. But you're still my sister, and you weren't Charlie Atkins' protégé for nothing. The best shooter in the East End is my little sister.   
  
I'm proud of you Sis,   
  
Ritchie."   
  
Ritchie's last words from beyond the grave caused a violent wash of cross cutting emotions to flood through Yvonne's whole heart and mind. She could picture him in his solitary cell writing these words only hours before his life had ticked away when he swallowed the lethal dose of pills. He had really done what he thought was right in trying to make amends for his life but had unleashed as much mayhem as when he helped his murdering tart Merriman so many months before. If only Lauren had just talked to her, if only she wasn't so preoccupied with loving Karen that she hadn't noticed Lauren working long hours as she had thought, if only……if only…if only.  
  
"The stupid sod really meant to do something right for the first time in his bleeding life," Yvonne's hoarse voice reflected the battle between her surface hard dismissiveness and a deeper bittersweet texture of her love for Ritchie which had gone wrong.  
  
"You'd better look at my letter, Lauren," Came the only words that Yvonne could utter right then.  
  
"Dear Mum,   
  
" I've written this letter, not only to try and put the record straight once and for all, but to ask you to do something for me……………….. Fenner did rape her, I'm certain of it. There's things you learn about women, like what's normal, and what isn't, and the way she was with me that first night really wasn't normal, in any sense of the word. A woman asking you to be rough with her, that's nothing new, but this was different. I asked her afterwards what it had all been about, and she said she was laying a few ghosts. Mum, she was trying to punish herself for what had happened with Fenner. I'm guessing she thought it was her fault, but he's the biggest shit going and deserves nothing but a dose of the Atkins justice. You're probably wondering why I'm telling you all this. I've got to say it now, because after tonight, I won't ever get another chance. She was sat in the public gallery with you all through the trial. Mum, please take care of her for me. She's still hurting after what that bastard Fenner did to her, and she needs looking after. I ain't asking you to finish Fenner off, because I know you won't. But I need you to keep an eye on Karen for me. I hate what I did to her and to you, and I can't ever put any of that right. But if somehow, you can see that she's all right, I'll feel like I've at least tried to put something right.   
  
I love you Mum,   
  
Ritchie."   
  
Lauren stared with unbelieving eyes to see a side of Ritchie, which he had kept concealed from the world, from the Atkins family and even from himself. Her brother Ritchie was the most bigoted homophobic man who had ever walked this earth apart from Charlie. In his world, gay men were still poufs and gay women were unnameable and did not exist outside the tabloid expose in the Sun, which informed his view of the world. Nowhere in his limited imagination could he possibly imagine that his sexually 'straight up and down' mother could feel the remotest attraction to Karen Betts, the same woman whose sexual manners in bed were those of a panthress and, who by definition, was the sort of normal woman whom he slept with. Yet Ritchie's words, unknown to Lauren, gave Yvonne the licence to enter a new life with Karen which Lauren now realised, all too late. If only she had known that at the time, Lauren reflected, as her fingers loosely held the note which should have also been destined for her. Firmly, she put a stop to this very suspect, self-flagellating morose train of thought. Ritchie had engineered the situation and kept both of them in the dark from each other and she had killed Fenner. The fallout from that one act was quite enough to deal with, she concluded to herself.  
  
"I'm really, really sorry that I've caused all this shit for you in killing Fenner," Lauren's thoughts suddenly found voice out of nowhere and her dark eyes also pleaded for forgiveness from Yvonne that she denied to herself.  
  
"I know that you and Karen wouldn't have split up if it hadn't been for me but please don't tell me not to worry because everything will be alright in the end because I know it won't. I've just got a bad feeling about it, about everything. It did me good to get away to Cassie and Roisin's for a few days," Lauren ended on a happier note.  
  
"What's done is done, Lauren. I know now what you did and why you did it and I ain't blaming you. How could I? I'll be here for you."  
  
"But what about you and Karen?" Lauren asked with real concern for her mother in her voice.   
  
"I don't know. It ain't up to me to decide what happens between Karen and me," Yvonne sighed, a twinge of pain hurting her to hear the names, once so entwined and now far apart. "I'll still be friends with her whatever happens. Somehow, we could never be enemies but don't bloody well ask me why that should be so except that….we've gone through too much together."  
  
"If ever you want to talk to me Mum, about anything. Remember, I'm here for you."   
  
As Lauren gave her a big hug of reassurance, Yvonne wiped a solitary tear out of her eye and wondered at a new tranquillity in Lauren's manner despite the sort of a confession which an Atkins did not make lightly and of the way she openly clung on to Yvonne, seeking the security which she had denied to others and herself. Not everything in her life had turned to shit. 


	131. Part One Hundred And Thirty One

Part One Hundred And Thirty One   
  
On the Friday morning, exactly one week since she'd collapsed in court, George drove in to the car park of the Old Bailey, switched off the engine and stared up at the old majestic building. So much of her life had been centered around this building. John had prosecuted and defended many cases here in the early days of their marriage. This was where George had first seen John together with Jo, which had inevitably led to the final breakdown of the few years they'd spent with each other. Then, eventually, John had been appointed Judge here, and George had been forced to defend some very dubious cases with him overseeing her performance. Jo and George had exchanged some of their most bitter words within the walls of this old Elizabethan pile, many of them cutting far deeper than any murderer's blade or bullet. Yet, George was forced to admit, this building had probably also forced herself and Jo to start seeing each other in a very different light. They'd once again been thrust in to each other's personal space through the Merriman/Atkins trial. George thought it was odd that she now always thought of that star from too many cheap blue movies with more faces than Big Ben as Snowball Merriman, and never as Tracy Pilkinton, when Merriman had been her stage name not her real name. But maybe that was the point. That woman had put on so many different acts in her time, that it was perhaps only right and proper to think of her in the guise of actress, and therefore always think of her with the stage name she had chosen. God, both her and John and her and Jo had gone through a couple of truly monumental rows during that trial. George faintly blushed when she thought of the damage she'd done to the door of John's chambers. Was that really her, really Georgia Channing? The old one maybe, but not the one she was now. George didn't think she'd have the strength or the inclination to do anything of the kind any more. But perhaps that was because she was still working very much under par. She still had the urge to go to sleep and not wake up for a month, if ever, and she was still barely eating, though this was admittedly much better than the previous week. George thought right back, to try and work out exactly what had initially got her and Jo talking. Then, she hit on it, the day she'd questioned Ritchie Atkins, and afterwards, Jo had directed George's attention to Karen and Yvonne kissing. That seemed so long ago now. then, Jo had persuaded her to go easy on Karen Betts by informing her of the bet she was having with John. George couldn't help grinning when she thought of John's all too predictable reaction to being presented with the evidence of his loss. But underneath this lightheartedness, had been lurking Neil's ever-increasing anger at her failure to really defend either Merriman or Atkins. The fact that all the evidence was against them hadn't bothered him in the slightest. He'd merely put it down to her incompetence as a criminal barrister. Then had come that awful fight, a week or so after the pair she'd done her damnedest for had committed suicide. She winced every time she thought of Neil's fist striking her face. John had been so good to her that night, when she'd lain in his arms and cried away her shame. The following morning, when Jo had been so understanding, that had totally thrown George more than she cared to admit. She'd shouted at Jo, taken out her anger at Neil on the one woman she'd always envied, and Jo had just stood there and let her do it, knowing just how much she'd needed too. From then on, she and Jo had tentatively begun widening the goalposts, allowing their heartfelt sympathy for Karen Betts and what she'd gone through at the hands of Fenner to unite them under the same umbrella of fighting for justice. George fondly remembered the night Jo had clearly come looking to her for a fight. Jo had been angry, almost furious with herself for failing to get Helen Stewart on board, and she'd known that George would give as good as she got. Then, Christ knows why, George had ended up by playing to Jo, something she never normally did in front of one of her most immovable rivals. After this, they'd begun spending more time with each other, it not being unheard of for Jo to casually drop in, like the time George had been on her way to getting seriously drunk. George had been hurting so much that particular night, the guilt at her betrayal of Jo's olive branch sitting heavy on her heart. The odd thing was, that George had felt momentarily safe in Jo's embrace, briefly as though someone actually cared about what she was feeling. Then had come that awful row with Karen. George knew she'd used Karen as an outlet, as a way to release some of her inner turmoil, but that had given her no excuse to go in for the kill the way she had. But it was when she'd sent that e-mail to Karen that she'd known something had changed in her forever. Never, not even if it was absolutely imperative, did Georgia Channing QC ever apologise for anything. Mistakes and serious steps over the mark were there to be made, endured and forgotten. But there she'd been, apologising for having accused Karen of something she certainly hadn't done, and for clearly intruding on her personal space. But what on earth had possessed her to warn Karen off John like that. Let's face it, Karen was a grown woman, well able to make her own mistakes in that line of things. But George had somehow felt it necessary to try and prevent Karen from being hurt yet one more time. George didn't at this time bring out her feelings on this matter and examine them in the way she knew that one day she must, because they were all so new, so confusing, so mixed up with her professional respect for the wing governor who'd successfully persuaded George to think again before she was rude to John in her line of duty. She shivered slightly, as if someone were walking over her grave, when she briefly allowed her thoughts to stand for a moment on the feeling of being clasped in Karen's strong, yet oh so female arms, and being whisked out of the reach of Alison McKenzie's fists. But shaking her head at herself, she got out of the car, and walked towards the steps, where she stood and lit a cigarette. Was it only a week since she'd made such a spectacle of herself by fainting in court? The rest of that day and the two following it had been so long. Her endless talk with Jo, followed by the one with John, and then her shorter one with Jo on the Sunday, had made it seem like a lifetime. Jo had called her a couple of times this week, just to see how she was doing. George wasn't used to this, having anything remotely resembling a normal, female friend who cared about how she was. The legal business was generally made up of either men who wanted to stamp on you to stop you from bettering them, or equally strong women, like herself she was forced to admit, who did exactly the same only far more ruthlessly. There wasn't the room for many friendships to be made, the internal and external politics sharpening up everyone's edges like a metaphorical steel. They hadn't talked for long when Jo had phoned, mainly because George was slightly ashamed of her outburst on Sunday, and because she simply wanted time alone to begin putting her mind and her body back together. But here she was, ready to start another trial. She just hoped she could appear as professional as she usually did.   
  
As she stood there, smoking and mentally preparing herself for the day ahead, John arrived and walked up the steps to join her.   
  
"Hello," She said carefully, not having spoken to him since he'd left the previous Saturday.   
  
"How are you?" He asked, equally carefully. George thought for a moment.   
  
"I'm surviving," She said, knowing that anything more would have been a lie. "What about you?"   
  
"I've had better days," He said, referring to the last time he'd seen her.   
  
"I'm sorry," George found herself saying and this was yet another new occurrence for her.   
  
"Don't be," Said John gently. "It had to happen some time. Are you eating?" George flinched under his unwavering scrutiny.   
  
"Just," She finally admitted. "It'll sort itself out in time."   
  
"Well, just make sure it does," He said firmly. "I'm sorry I didn't phone you, especially after I said I would."   
  
"That's all right," She replied, knowing they were both skirting over the real issues that existed between them, in favour of the more immediate, more trivial concerns. "Actually," She said, flicking away her cigarette end. "I'm sort of glad you didn't. I've been pretty low this week, and I wouldn't have wanted anyone to see me like that, but especially not you."   
  
"George, I..."   
  
"Don't," She interrupted him, desperate to prevent him from being in any way nice to her.   
  
"I was just going to tell you not to retreat," He finished.   
  
"I know," She said, "But I think I need to for a while. I'm still reeling from just about everything that was said between us last weekend, and I can't quite handle being around you or in fact anyone at the moment." Then, looking him in the face, and taking the plunge in to what felt like her last confession, she said, "I need you too much, John, and because of that, I don't trust myself not to take advantage of too many old scars being reopened. And, though I don't think I'm going to get it," She said ruefully, watching Jo park her car and walk towards them, "I need some space." John stood stunned for a moment, taking in the full meaning of what she'd just said to him. George, in her typically euphemistic way, had just told him she still loved him, and that she needed space from him in order to prevent herself from repeating what had set her on her most recent downward spiral in the first place. So as not to push George in any way, John lifted a hand in acknowledgement to Jo, and walked inside.   
  
"How are you?" Jo asked when she reached George.   
  
"Heartily sick of being asked exactly that," George replied, a hint of her former self creeping back in to her tone. Jo smiled, for once taking no offence at George's rebuke.   
  
"Forgive me," She said dryly, "Polite enquiry rescinded." George gave a small laugh.   
  
"I'm sorry," She said, "That sounded awful, didn't it."   
  
"Yes, but I know what you mean," Said Jo, looking for her own nicotine fix. "Actually," She said, taking a grateful drag. "There's something I need to ask you, though it ought to wait until we've got the time to really thrash it out."   
  
"Sounds ominous," Said George, who couldn't for the life of her imagine what was coming.   
  
"No, it's not," Said Jo with a smile. "I think you might like the idea." Agreeing that Jo would come over that evening, partly to celebrate George's return to work, they walked inside the building where their paths had originally become so entwined. 


	132. Part One Hundred And thirty Two

Part One Hundred and Thirty Two   
  
  
  
The shrill sound of the phone cracked the listless silence, which had hung on the air in the Atkins household.   
  
"I'll get it," Yvonne's weary tones were unheard by Lauren whose glazed eyes were bored out of her brains from watching daytime television. However, as a way of escaping uncomfortable thoughts, it had its doubtful uses and made her wonder why all the brain dead idiots in the world watched it in the first place.  
  
Looking out of the corner of her eye, her curiosity was roused to see her mother grinning from ear to ear for the first time in ages and that sparkle come back to her eyes.  
  
"Yeah, Denny. I'll do the delivery myself personally, no problem. It won't be express pizza, though."  
  
"You what?" Yvonne could hear Denny's bemused tones and could picture her eyebrows raise in incomprehension.  
  
"Just a little private joke between me and Lauren who's earwigging, seeing that Dale bloody Winton is being such a twat."  
  
"You mean…"  
  
"On daytime television. Oh yeah, and David bleeding Beckham came round with Posh and the kids for a photoshoot for OK magazine," Yvonne's gentle and affectionate mockery made Denny smile at herself in a way that would not have been possible before Yvonne came into her life.  
  
"Be sure to get a diversion laid on and I'll deliver," Yvonne's reassuring tones and her good word that she had never gone back on, transformed Denny into the excitable happy go lucky kid that she had learnt that she was safe to be.  
  
The cold blue sky and the bitter wind cut through Yvonne's black leather jacket as she nonchalantly waited outside the high grey walls of Larkhall. These ramparts were topped by the ugly coiled barbed wire, carefully designed to deter the desperate from escaping. She had looked up at it more times than she cared to count when she was in the exercise yard enjoying the brief sliver of time to herself. Now she had all the time in the world, no fences, no one else's timetable to conform to. Her smile of satisfaction faded as her thoughts struggled to be expressed in words and memories that, somewhere in the grey pile of antiquity and injustice, was the woman who slipped her way too easily into her dreams and was out of reach.   
  
Right on cue to rescue her came the ragged shouting from the other side of the walls.  
  
"Give it back to me, you bitch," Denny's authentically menacing voice rang out.  
  
"Now then, now then, Blood. You'll find yourself in serious trouble unless you stop it at once," Bodybag's harassed voice could be heard clearly the other side of the wall  
  
and fell short of that hectoring note of authority, which she always aspired to.  
  
"This is like a bleeding comedy show with the picture turned off," Smiled Yvonne to herself, as the mixture of voices appeared to speak from out of the inexpressive solid grey mass in front of her.  
  
"You're not getting it off me, Blood. You're talking a load of pish," Al's thick Glaswegian accent was just about distinguishable. Most prisoners who had met Al had often dearly wished that her voice could be subtitled.  
  
"Hey, Ju," Julie J's voice chimed in with that very endearingly mock innocent tone. "Al's deliberately taking what belongs to Denny. Can't have that, can we."  
  
"If you want it, Blood, you're going to have to catch me and I'll fight ye for it," Al's defiant tones faded, as her voice seemed to move from straight-ahead to Yvonne's right.  
  
"Good work, Julies," Yvonne thought as she could visualise the diversion being laid ready for Yvonne to play her part.  
  
This is no time for bleeding Memory Lane, she thought to herself as her arm swung back and the object described a perfect parabola, well clear of the barbed wire which might have snagged it, up over to the highest point and dropping down out of sight behind the wall.  
  
"All right, break it up," Karen's well-modulated voice was pitched up with perfect ease over the hubbub, which stopped as if the switch had been thrown.  
  
"You should know how to behave yourself better, Denny," Di's petulant tones nagged away ineffectively.   
  
"It's all right, miss. Everything's cool," Denny's voice called out loudly. "Me and Al have got everything sorted now."  
  
"That's my girl," Yvonne muttered under her breath. "Just loud enough for me to hear." Despite all the shit that had happened, this little pantomime brought back to her all the enterprises which she had been at the heart of and how important it made her feel that she was Top Dog of Larkhall, not just for her own ego but for the way she was able to create some meaning in her life in dispensing Atkins justice, both soft and hard in the world around her. At moments like these she had felt more alive than she had ever done. Now, there was sadness to go with the happiness that she had gained with her freedom. The problem in her bleeding life was what to do with it.  
  
"That's good then," Karen looked very closely at the crowd of prisoners. There was something about the situation that didn't seem quite right. From her experience, a grudge argument that appeared to have taken place didn't shut up as promptly as it did this time. There was no sustained glaring between Denny and Al who mysteriously had shut up and were on normal terms. "You have five minutes to the end of association and if there is any more trouble, you will all be up before me on Rule 43," She finished sternly.  
  
Out of the corner of her eye, she took in Di Barker and Bodybag, both flushed, breathless   
  
and floundering. Jesus, why does she have to spend her time nannying these two inneffective women. Now Fenner is gone, all the stuffing seemed to have leaked out of the pair of them.   
  
"I'm going back to my office now. Will you both ensure that proper order is maintained on my wing? I shall be around if you need me," Karen's stern voice softened at the end to try and be helpful. She had to confess that she had great difficulty in preventing a note of sarcasm from creeping into her voice.   
  
She had to admit that the tone in Larkhall had changed for the better. The dominant personalities amongst the prisoners maintained a rough and ready justice amongst their own and pretty well kept things running. It was a huge relief, and she ought not to speak or think ill of the dead, but Larkhall without the psychotic self centred manipulative presence of Snowball Merriman had lost that edginess and that she was happier in her mind that there wasn't some conspiracy afoot to cause mayhem. Added to this was the absence of Fenner's glowering brooding presence in the PO's room. Life nowadays at Larkhall was so much more transparent and honest and made her more relaxed. When she looked at matters straight, the man had been the source and focus of corruption in Larkhall for decades, always concealing his darker crimes, subtly working on the susceptibilities of the prisoners and prison officers alike and doing it in a totally underhand fashion. She should know, she thought ruefully, as she had been a victim of that twisted personality whom she had once foolishly loved and may have loved her for all she knew. She would never know, as his voice could not reach her from beyond the grave. That was mainly a blessing but there was a tinge of regret.   
  
She grabbed at the files in her in tray and, while she was scanning the first of them to check progress reports, she ought to push for her staffing needs to be sorted out.   
  
It was time she got onto Area Personnel to pull their finger out and get them the replacement Principal Officer. She had asked them to make enquiries about Gina Rossi and Dominic McAllister and, after vague promises, she hadn't heard anything more from them. She needed a good Principal Officer to pull the prisoners into shape.  
  
"I'm sure I heard a car driving away after that incident outside," Karen said to herself and the light dawned in her mind as she could see the hand of Yvonne Atkins at work. A wealth of mixed emotions flooded back into her mind of the woman who had been the organising brains of all the dubiously legal and outright illegal activities amongst the prisoners. She held her biro mid air as she thought her eyes glazed over and the sharp workaday edges and lines in the portrait of her room dissolved into soft focus.  
  
Yvonne Atkins was the first woman she had ever loved, she mouthed to herself and she was not ashamed of that love not could she ever be. It was not as if she was trying to reform Yvonne, to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear as that hateful phrase straight out of the spirit of Pygmalion would have it. No, she loved Yvonne for the woman she was and while she was free and out of Larkhall, they were as free to love each other as much as they permitted themselves to be. Gradually, bit by bit the defences had come down between them and their love was as precious and as sweetly unfamiliar as falling in love was for the first time when she was in her teens. The taste of the irony was as bitter in her mouth as the realisation that, for all Yvonne's criminal background, she was twenty times more honest to her than the smooth-talking bastards she had let come into her bed. It's just that they handled their lives to just fall the right side of the wobbly and crooked line that marked out the world of the legal. No matter what had gone wrong between her and Yvonne, she would never stand for any righteous citizen to criticise Yvonne's memory, both in Larkhall and outside. Sylvia had enough sense in her head not to misread the look in her eye not to fall for that one.  
  
Denny's eyes were alight with mischief when she unwrapped the tightly wrapped parcel that she had popped into the large pocket of her green combat trousers.  
  
"You're going to shoot your way out of Larkhall?" Al questioned Denny as the sinister shape of the revolver took vague shape from underneath the wrappings.  
  
"You're mad, Al," Denny joked. "And screw up my chance of getting out of Larkhall? I'm keeping my nose clean now and I'm going to get out of here the right way. With my reputation, no bitch will mess with me so I don't have to get into trouble."  
  
The realistic shape resembled a German Luger revealed its secret when Denny squeezed the plastic shape and filled it full of water. Al watched with total fascination and missed the mischievous glint in Denny's eye by a mile and her smothered cry as a jet of water hit her in the eye.  
  
"Hey, don't wreck the pistol, man. We're going to have fun with this. What's today, Al?" Denny asked excitedly, visibly jumping for joy in anticipation.  
  
"How the frig do I know. It's Eastenders tonight," Al said, her slow mind trying to work out what was special about just another boring day in Larkhall.   
  
"It's Halloween Night….."  
  
"So you're planning to go off on a broomstick, Denny?"  
  
"It's 'trick or treat,' Al. And this is the trick. Get it?"  
  
A slow dawning look of realisation spread over Al's face as she could see the prospect of some fun. She meekly let Denny take possession of the water pistol in the same way that she had deferred to a woman who was sharper, more decisive and who knew what they wanted. Once she was Maxi Purvis's cropped haired 'heavy' who intimidated, kicked or punched whoever got in their way or whoever looked too closely at her, who made her feel uncomfortable and seemed to be taking the piss out of her. Now, she followed meekly after the other kind hearted and understanding woman with whom she could feel relaxed and better about herself.  
  
Karen was idly watching the prisoners chat happily amongst themselves and could feel the lightness of atmosphere and take in the good-natured banter between them. While her defences weren't entirely down, it did remind her of how on edge she had been once and how she had never questioned how unnatural it was to work that way. Her thought went out in gratitude and sympathy to Helen who had slaved so hard to try and turn Larkhall round so that prisoners are treated decently and that she was at last receiving the payoff.  
  
Denny had dressed up in a black sleeveless T-shirt, and trousers and looked around her for Bodybag. She above all deserved to be 'trick or treated' and she desperately hoped that Bodybag would choose the trick. It would be worth a hundred cigarettes to see her pompous face splatted with water.   
  
"This is for you, baby. I wish you were around to see it, man," She muttered under her breath and the smile on her face disappeared as she could swear that she could see Shaz's wide grin of approval of what she was about to do. No matter what happened to her in future, she knew that she would never lose her love for Shaz, for that lighthearted carefree spirit and her spiky blond hair.   
  
Only Karen Betts was on duty of all the screws that she knew. She had a mental debate in her mind as she could remember the kindness and gentleness that she had shown when she escorted her on a golden hot summer's day to Yvonne's fabulous palace of delights. She looked at the expression on Karen's face and finally concluded that Karen was a real sport and would take it the right way.  
  
"Trick or treat, miss?" Denny called out in that very mischievous fashion.   
  
Instinctively, her past experience of Ross as a boy jumped into her mind as she heard a similar high pitched boyish voice many years ago. It was in that golden period when he was young and affectionate, when he clung to her as a rock before some twisted adolescent impulse drove him away. In that split second, she ducked, as a jet of water would otherwise have landed right in the middle of her face. Unfortunately, Grayling was walking right up to her from behind and received the jet of water right in his face.  
  
There was a moment of shocked hush before first the 2 Julies burst out laughing and then laughter exploded round the wing.   
  
"I am not going to have this prison turned into a pantomime farce. You, Miss Betts will take appropriate disciplinary action and ensure that this Wing is in proper order…"  
  
"Hold it, Neil, I would rather have G Wing acting like a load of fourth form schoolgirls so long as they are having a bit of harmless fun rather than fighting each other and especially if there isn't some cold blooded psychopath planning to blow up G wing. It is Halloween. My son Ross tried it on all the time only I learned to duck quickly."  
  
The way that Karen jumped in firmly on a decisive note and ended up on a confiding, humourous note, which caught the imagination of the women who saw Karen Betts the human being rather than the Wing Governor. She faced the prisoners rather than Neil as the sight of his overbearing dignity punctured by water dripping off his shirt collar would only set her off. She knew only too well that when she saw the funny side of something, the whole world knew about it.  
  
"You're cool, Miss," Denny's very real admiration of the cool and sophisticated woman was expressed in her own style.  
  
"Well, everybody carry on with what you were doing," Karen smiled, the relaxation obvious in her body language. There was a twinkle in her eye and Denny was very quick to notice that Karen had not asked her to promise not to do any more 'trick or treating.' As with Yvonne, it was impossible for Denny in her attachment to both women not to make a promise that she knew that she would not keep.  
  
Bodybag sighed as she was on her rounds after having forsaken the comforts of the PO's room and being served her mug of tea by a new prisoner from whom she had made her exacting demands for milk and sugar. Laying down her petty idea of the law was one of the pleasures of the job. It was ten minutes to lockup. Looking down a corridor, she saw her least favourite, that cheeky Blood woman approaching.  
  
"Trick or treat, miss?" Denny called.  
  
That inflamed her anger straightaway. This was a new fangled American habit like Father's Day and music played by those prancing black men on television that her daughter Connie used to insist on.  
  
"You're not getting any treats from me, Blood. You ought to know better."  
  
Instantly, a jet of cold water hit her in the face and blinded her.  
  
"What the flaming hell are you doing Blood? You're on Rule 43 and down the block for carrying an offensive weapon and being disrespectful to your betters," She spluttered, dabbing water from her face and feeling it soaking into her uniform. She hated water being splashed into her face and she was going to put her foot down.  
  
"Oh come on, Sylvia," Karen's amused tones broke in on her, much to her intense annoyance. "You should have seen that one coming. I did when Denny aimed at me earlier on and she got Mr Grayling instead."  
  
"If you are wanting to transform this place into Butlins Holiday Camp then I must protest. Are you trying to be 'prisoner's friend' like Miss Stewart? At the very least, I insist that you confiscate that weapon, ma'am, and see that Denny Blood is banged up in solitary so quickly that her feet don't touch the ground."  
  
"I would be very happy to follow Helen Stewart's example. Her leaving the Prison Service was a sad loss. There are times when I wonder what to do in a situation and I ask myself how would Helen have approached it. I know that you didn't see eye to eye with her but, right now," and here, her voice shifted from the gentle and reflective through hard and determined and ending on a note of icy contempt., "I'm in charge and I'll go right on being in charge and I'll do things my way. There's noone to stop me, not you on your own, Sylvia, and you are on your own, aren't you."  
  
Bodybag shivered inside as the deadly truth of Karen's remarks hit home. She lowered her eyes. For Karen, this was payback time and she could now afford to spell out exactly how matters stood. Fenner's death had cast a shadow over her life and others so she was quite entitled to see the positive side of it. Denny was full of delight and jubilation at her last very unexpected treat.  
  
"Besides, didn't you do that sort of thing when you were young, Sylvia? I was pretty good with a water pistol when I was a kid. It takes me back. However Denny, perhaps you had better let me have the water pistol and be ready for lockup as normal."  
  
"Cool, miss," Denny grinned broadly and scampered down the corridors.  
  
When Karen was back in her office, she examined the close imitation of the Luger pistol carefully and placed it in pride of place in the office. Her grin to herself was whole souled and felt from the bottom of her soul at this innocent piece of plastic which couldn't harm anyone. 


	133. Part One Hundred And Thirty Three

Part One Hundred And Thirty Three   
  
Jo arrived at George's soon after eight that evening, John dropping her off on his way to some judge's convention that mere QC's weren't permitted to attend. He said he'd pick her up later so that she could drink. A tennis match was going on in Jo's head, of whether she should float her suggestion with George, or whether she shouldn't. But before this decision was made, Jo knew that she had to have answers to a few questions. The possible answers she might receive were almost more frightening than how George might react to what she had to say. They sat and talked for a while, listening to some fairly hypnotic music that couldn't fail to relax even the most tense of souls. It was odd, George thought wryly, how two women who now knew so much about each other, could talk for almost an hour about nothing remotely important, always avoiding the issues that had so recently occupied both their minds. At one point, Jo looked at George with a little twinkle in her eye and said,   
  
"That's the longest I've ever seen you make a drink last." George found that she couldn't quite meet Jo's eyes.   
  
"I haven't got round to eating yet today and too much alcohol on an empty stomach is never a good idea." Jo rolled her eyes.   
  
"Then do it," She said gently but firmly. She didn't take her unwavering gaze away from George until she finally shrugged, stood up and moved towards the kitchen. Looking back over her shoulder, George asked,   
  
"Are you hungry?" Not wanting to be the only one eating.   
  
"I ate before I came out," Replied Jo, wondering how long George would have put this off if Jo hadn't brought it up. George returned in a few minutes with a plate of cheese and crackers. Jo made absolutely no comment on what George was eating, knowing that as long as she was, drawing attention to it wasn't necessary.   
  
"So," Said George, taking a mouthful of cheese, "Tell me why you've been looking so pensive ever since you got here." Thinking that she'd actually hidden it quite well, Jo's eyes widened. "You're not the only one who has the capacity to be vaguely observant on occasions, you know," George said dryly. Jo took a swig of her whisky to give her courage.   
  
"It's about John," She said, putting the glass back on the table. George just waited. "But before I tell you about the possible solution to some of our problems, yours, mine and his, I need answers to a couple of questions."   
  
"Go on," Said George, thoroughly intrigued but still on her guard.   
  
"I need to know how you feel about John." George recoiled as if she'd been slapped. Putting the plate of cheese down on the coffee table, because she suddenly didn't feel like eating it, George lit a cigarette.   
  
"Why is it so imperative for you to know?" She asked guardedly.   
  
"Because I need to know what level of threat your feelings for John might pose." George looked relieved.   
  
"Well, you can stop worrying," She said. "I might still love John," She added, now knowing that she could be totally open with Jo. "But he will never feel the same about me again. I've hurt him too much." Jo looked unconvinced. "Oh, he might say he does," Went on George, "He might even think he does, but he couldn't. What happened with Charlie hurt him more than he will ever admit to anyone. How could he, how could anyone, love me after I'd put them through something like that. Jo, even if John thinks he does still have anything but negative feelings for me, it won't get him anywhere. We've both hurt each other too much to even consider living together or having any kind of a relationship again. You can feel utterly safe on that score, I promise."   
  
"I thought you didn't do promises," Said Jo, a small smile turning up the corners of her mouth. But George remained very serious.   
  
"That's one promise I know I can keep," She replied. "Jo, I'm not going through this again. Though it feels odd to say it, I value our friendship far more than I do a quick fix from John, and I never thought I'd even come close to saying something like that." Jo stared at her, utterly speechless. Never would she have expected to hear something like this from George. Yes, Jo had known that they were getting closer, they were becoming friends of a sort. You don't exchange the type of deeply held confidences that they had and not become friends, but it still stunned her to hear George say it. She was incredibly touched by such a level of sentiment coming from someone whom she'd thought of for years as not having a remotely soft bone in her body.   
  
"Well," Said Jo, trying to steady her voice, "Keeping that in mind, there's something else I need to ask you." George had observed Jo's slight shock at what she'd said, and knew that in barely commenting on it she was trying to bring the conversation back on to safer ground. George simply raised an eyebrow. "George, this is quite difficult," Jo added, looking more uncomfortable by the minute.   
  
"I'm listening," George replied, wondering what on earth was coming.   
  
"When you slept with John, recently I mean, I know he said something to you about me, something that I might not want to know. What was it?" George held her cigarette suspended in mid air, staring at Jo because she could all too easily remember John's words of that night. He'd said, "Jo's not quite as adventurous as you." Just before the ash fell from the end of her cigarette, she reached forward and stubbed it out in the ashtray. "What was it, George?" Jo persisted. "Did he tell you how uninteresting in bed I am?"   
  
"No, of course not," Said George, with a little too much vehemence. Jo rolled her eyes.   
  
"George, you're an even more transparent liar than my youngest son," She said, knowing that whatever it was, she needed to know. Now it was George's turn to look uncomfortable.   
  
"I think his words were, Jo's not quite as adventurous as you. Why, do you think that's why he strays?"   
  
"I'd say it was pretty obvious, wouldn't you?" Jo replied, the hurt at John's words clearly showing in her face.   
  
"Jo, that's got absolutely nothing to do with it," Said George with total certainty.   
  
"Hasn't it?" Asked Jo in disgust.   
  
"No, not in the slightest. Jo, just because I'll try almost anything at least once, does not, I repeat not make you uninteresting in bed. If anything, it makes me a whore. John really isn't that fickle. You might think he is sometimes, and you'd probably have every reason too, but John doesn't work like that." George stood up and moved to perch on the arm of Jo's chair. Taking one of Jo's hands that had been folded in her lap, she could feel the chill from its contact with the ice-filled whisky glass. "John loves you, Jo, more than he's ever loved anyone."   
  
"So why is it so difficult for him to be even remotely faithful?" Jo asked, her tone half-angry, half-pleading.   
  
"I don't know," Said George wearily. "I think he needs at least the pretence of an affair, or a fling, or an occasional away fixture to remind himself why he loves the one woman he's supposed to be with. You know as well as I do that it mostly stems from feeling very insecure. I think part of him is so convinced that whoever he's with will one day leave him, that he has to make the pretence of not needing them so much. After Charlie, he thought I didn't love him, so he played away to feel appreciated again."   
  
"But I do love him," Jo said emphatically. "I wouldn't put up with him the way I do if I didn't."   
  
"I know," Said George, gently chafing away the coldness from Jo's hand. "And John knows that too, but because he didn't have a fallback when his mother died, and therefore left him, I think he feels that he has to have some way of coping if ever you were to leave him. I don't know that for certain, I'm just taking a shot in the dark."   
  
"Which makes what I have to suggest, all the more reasonable," Said Jo, turning her head slightly to look in to George's face. "Will you help me keep him on the straight and narrow?" George looked nonplussed.   
  
"I don't understand," She said. "After all, I was the one who failed to keep him on the straight and narrow in the first place."   
  
"George, I think he needs both of us," Said Jo carefully. George let go of Jo's hand as if it had burnt her. She stood up and began pacing back and forth between the piano and the sofa.   
  
"Jo," She said firmly. "I can't let you do that."   
  
"Why?" Asked Jo, "It's the obvious solution to a problem. We both love John, you've said it yourself, and I don't think he'll ever feel secure enough to settle with just one woman. George, one woman, especially not a fairly conventional woman, will ever be enough for John."   
  
"Well, it's about bloody time it was," George replied furiously. "Jo, I can't do this. The guilt I've felt at sleeping with him twice has almost succeeded in finishing me off altogether. Wonderful as it might be to be what amounts to John's mistress, I just couldn't do it."   
  
"But there wouldn't be any question of guilt involved in this," Persisted Jo, determined to persuade George to agree. George eventually sat down on the sofa and lit another cigarette.   
  
"Is this really what you want?" Asked George, still unable to believe that Jo was serious about this.   
  
"I wouldn't have suggested it if it wasn't," Jo replied. "George, it's the only way I can think of, of making him stay with me long term. If I just let things go on as they are, he will hurt me once too often, and I don't want that to happen."   
  
"Are you planning to go official about your relationship with him?"   
  
"No way," Said Jo, briefly rolling her eyes. "That only ever introduces unnecessary tensions and expectations. George, I'm asking you to do this for me, because I know that you won't ever take him back full time. If I didn't know who he was sleeping with, I'd always be afraid that one day, he might find someone who could give him more than I do. There would always be the possibility that he would one day leave me for someone else. As you said, that isn't going to happen with you." George sat and smoked in silence, contemplating everything Jo had said. Eventually, she stubbed out her cigarette and refilled her glass with Martini. Picking it up, she reached forward to clink it with Jo's.   
  
"Crazy as this situation is," She said with a rueful smile, "I think you have yourself a deal." As their glasses touched, Jo smiled broadly.   
  
"Thank you," She said, "You're not the only one who's going to have reservations about this."   
  
"I think I'll leave telling him about this to you," Said George far too innocently, knowing of old how much John hated to be outmanoeuvred.   
  
A couple of hours later, when they'd consumed enough alcohol to relax both of them, and George had eaten the rest of her plate of cheese, they heard a familiar car draw up outside and a key turn in the front door.   
  
"I'd forgotten he still had Neil's key," George said with a smile at John's devious nature. When he appeared in the lounge, they both smiled at him.   
  
"How were the judges?" Asked Jo, and he couldn't help but notice the distinct air of relaxed connivance between these two favourite women of his.   
  
"I wish I'd been here instead," He said. "If I ever end up as thoroughly irritating and dull as the rest of them, do let me know."   
  
"Oh, I don't think there's much chance of that, do you Jo?" George asked, giving Jo a conspiratorial wink. Jo grinned.   
  
"No, I don't think so somehow."   
  
"I'm not even going to ask what you two have been discussing in my absence," He replied, getting the very discomforting feeling that they'd been talking about him.   
  
"Oh, you'll find out soon enough," Said George, trying to wind him up even further. John held out the door key he'd let himself in with.   
  
"Do you want this back?" He asked, holding it out to George.   
  
"I think you'd better keep it for now," She said, wondering just how he would take Jo's suggestion. A little while later when George watched them drive away in John's car, she stood on the doorstep, looking out at the dark, now November night. She was forced to admit that Jo's idea had been an ingenious one. But could they really carry it off? She didn't know. Only time would tell. A few days ago, Georgia Channing hadn't wanted more time, she hadn't wanted any time at all on this earth. But now she felt that maybe, just maybe she might have a life worth fighting for. 


	134. Part One Hundred And Thirty Four

Part One Hundred and Thirty Four   
  
"The LCd must have been slipping when they let you take on the Rogers case. What they wanted from their point of view was a nice compliant judge who knows full well that sending down a football hero would not please his lords and masters. And what do they get but you," Jo's amused tones set the seal on the scene of cosy intimacy of an evening at her house in the same way as they had shared so many evenings.  
  
The expression on John's face was a combination of a naughty schoolboy, revelling in his badness and the idealistic man whose steady unflinching gaze was fixed on life's far horizons rather than on the short sighted perspectives of self interest.  
  
"I am willing to be persuaded to the contrary by facts as the trial unfolds," John calmly pontificated, not altogether convincingly. "But the essence of the case is of a common lout, his sense of self importance inflated by his publicist and by a fawning press, who has come to think that he is exempt from normal moral restraints and, above all, from justice. He finds himself in a bar surrounded by a pack of his accomplices and hangers on and, in an unprovoked assault, leaves an innocent man who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time so seriously injured that he is unable to continue his normal more humble occupation."  
  
"You risk not only having the establishment ranged against you but popular opinion who will call for your blood, on both the front page of the tabloids and in the sports sections," Jo urged caution, knowing full well how wasted her advice was.  
  
"'The people who have conquered the world now have two interests - bread and circuses.' So wrote Juvenal, a great writer of the games that took place on the circus Maximus which consumed the misplaced dreams of the Roman mob which the Caesars used cynically to keep them in line. That quotation echoed down the generations, through the Dark ages and to the present day while the names of the charioteers, so famous in their time, are forgotten." The rolling tones in John's voice conveyed the scorn and the passion in him and, after all these years, his durable and unbreakable idealism.  
  
"Your public school education has taken interesting forms, John," Jo's amused tones nevertheless respected his strong feelings.   
  
John nodded his agreement rather than spoke as he recalled the other strand of unorthodoxy in his thinking, his research through the more arid stretches of the Bible until he came across the relative oasis of the Songs of Solomon.   
  
"On the top of the Old Bailey stands the statue of the scales of justice which should be evenly balanced, not weighted towards the famous and the politically powerful. If the Attorney General were at least honest, he would have that symbol recast in a form more appropriate for his corrupt thinking."  
  
Jo shook her head in admiration, dragged back for fear of what trouble he could finally land himself in. She knew that, in this mode of conversation, John meant every word that he said in his uncompromising tones which did not hesitate. There was no other man whom she knew who would not carry on to the bitter end and this was a large part of her attraction for him.  
  
"If David Beckham were in the dock and found guilty of a similar offence, you would send him down as you did in the Armatige case, wouldn't you," Jo articulated the words to describe a scenario that she barely dared to think that even John was capable of.  
  
"Of course, Jo. What else is British justice there for?" John proclaimed with total certainty and assurance.  
  
"In that case, John, it wouldn't be too much trouble to ask you to dispense your sort of justice nearer home. I'm talking about me, you and George. It doesn't begin and end in court, you know."  
  
A sudden chilly silence froze over the warm feelings of gentle intimacy. It hung in the air   
  
While Jo waited for the words from John which were a long time in coming while the expression on his face turned blank and remote.  
  
"Is this what you've been leading up to, Jo? And just how far is George in on this plot?"   
  
John's low voice heavily accentuating the consonents expressed powerful emotions of suppressed anger.  
  
"John, there's such an obvious contradiction running right through you and you either don't acknowledge it or even see it. Place you in front of a moral dilemma where nineteen other men would compromise their moral values in a matter of injustice, you do the opposite and fight to put right that injustice regardless of taking on powerful people in high places. In contrast to that extraordinary hard, courageous decision, if you have the choice of whether or not to chase after other women, you take the easy way out every time, for example you end up sleeping with your therapist of all people. And when you do come clean about her, when you could have shown some shame and embarrassment and explain why you acted that way, you came over as so glib and matter of fact, which was really hurtful. You could have spoken up but you didn't. Aren't I someone whom you should battle to treat justly, John? This has been a long time in coming," rounded out Jo in her most powerful summing up with all the passion in her nature. "Talking to George gave me the final push to just come out and say it."   
  
"I promise I'll stop looking at other women, Jo. I'll change. We'll get married if that is what you want," John's dry tones spoke with an utter lack of conviction.  
  
"This concerns George as well," Jo replied equally quietly, suppressing a reaction to vent her annoyance in an inarticulate sound of frustration.  
  
John looked sharply at Jo through half closed lids which subconsciously aided his desire not to be too closely watched.  
  
"Oh, and might I ask you how you work that one out?"  
  
Jo took a deep breath now that she was rounding into the matter that she had rehearsed to herself and John's possible reactions and got to the point.  
  
"I know you, John, only too well. I don't believe that you can change overnight just like that. I need you to explain to me just exactly why you slept with George, not once but twice, the same woman whom you have fought with like cat and dog for years. As I say, you take the easy way out when you're not in court unless you can convince me otherwise."  
  
John was silent for two of the longest minutes in his life as he gathered his thoughts together for what looked like an unpleasant scene just when he least expected it.  
  
"I don't know what you want me to say, Jo," He led off in a hesitant fashion.  
  
"How about the truth?" Came Jo's immediate angry response before she softened her approach in a more sorrowful tone. "I have to know why you slept with George and how you feel about her."  
  
"I love her as Charlie's mother," he eventually replied, taking a seat as he found standing up in front of Jo uncomfortable as he did not know where to put himself. "I know that we can never live together. Too much water has gone under the bridge."   
  
"But can you and George live apart," Jo pursued, not bothering to confront the meaningless metaphor of John's last sentence. "And, if you can't, is that why you slept with her?"  
  
It was Jo's crystal clear, wide-open blue eyes, which gave John's studied, mannered demeanour and half closed eyes no respite. It was as if a searchlight was trained into his eyes yet this was only the same woman whom he was accustomed to viewing from on high, day in day out in court.  
  
"All right," John admitted with a touch of impatience, "George came round one night and she practically threw herself at me."  
  
"And being John, you couldn't resist. Come on, admit it."   
  
John got up from his armchair, turned his back on Jo and took slow, deliberate paces round the far corner of the room before talking in Jo's direction.  
  
"All right, my powers of resistance to an attractive woman like George are not all that they might be. Does that satisfy you?"  
  
"So, you are still in love with her," Jo answered softly to which John made a barely perceptible nod of his head.  
  
"And when you saw her again, that was the reason? Not just sex, like all the other women you have had one night stands with. If you sleep with the same woman more than once, it must mean something."  
  
The expression on John's face was a barely perceptible assent.  
  
"Good. We're getting somewhere, John. You're doing fine," Jo's much softer voice stroked John's emotional wounds which, for the first time in his life, were exposed to the surface.  
  
"You're more deadly than my therapist, Jo," John managed a weak smile and a shaky laugh.  
  
"That's because I know you better, John, and I'm not too close to you so that I become part of the problem and not part of the solution. I am fighting you for your soul as in Don Giovanni. Remember the way that he ruthlessly dismissed Donna Elvira all the way through the opera while he pursues Donna Anna and, at the end, the statue of the Commendatore comes to life, burns down the castle and condemns Giovanni to hell. Among the ruins of the castle, those who are left plan their futures and recite the last chorus, the moral "Such is the fate of a wrong doer." With your record of fighting the LCD, I would rather Sir Ian Rochester and Lawrence James are cast down into the depths of hell rather than you."  
  
"I am grateful for your sense of justice, Jo. When you become a judge, wrongdoers who come before you will be grateful for your sense of justice even though it may leave severe emotional lacerations behind," John's sense of irony was tempered by the feelings of his nerve endings ruthlessly exposed.  
  
"I have talked to George and you need to know that George still loves you but she thinks that you could never possibly love her, because of how she feels as a bad mother who is unworthy of love."  
  
"I never reproached her," John protested.  
  
"I know you wouldn't and I do not have to question you about that as it is so like you," Jo's voice softened into tenderness, "but you have to know how George would feel about herself. She would feel that you were trying to be kind to her and that would make her feel worse than ever. Have you considered that George sought you out at a point in her life when her self esteem was at rock bottom and she wanted to go to bed with you to make herself feel loved?"  
  
John found himself increasingly unable to deal with the conversation. He was used to Jo's bitter reproaches at his having strayed but was not used to the idea that Jo was trying to propel him into George's bed and taking her side so much. This wasn't what he was accustomed to in his relationships, both casual and as permanent as relationships ever were.  
  
"I don't understand you, Jo," He confessed.  
  
"That must be the first time in your life that you have ever said these words. In our relationship, in and out of court, you are accustomed to being the teacher."  
  
"All right, Jo. Can I make you a drink?"  
  
"A cup of coffee only but don't think that you are using that to escape me," Jo admonished sternly.  
  
"The thought would never cross my mind," John's little boyish, innocent voice replied.  
  
"That's because now you know you wouldn't ever get away with it," Jo laughed.  
  
A more companionable silence fell upon the room while John pottered round in the kitchen while Jo sank back in relief and exhaustion. Going five rounds with John demanded every resource in her body as sheer physical endurance and a mental flexibility second to none. Only till recently had Jo emerged as just about equal to John.  
  
"Can I ask you one last question, John?" Jo said while she stirred the coffee with an ornate silver teaspoon. "Did you ever say to George that I was not as adventurous in bed as she was?" Jo admonished John. "I have heard George's version of the conversation and I had to drag it out of her only as she wanted to spare my feelings."  
  
For the first time in his life, John was flooded with a very rare feeling of total embarrassment and he could swear that he was blushing. For decades, the suit of armour of his public school upbringing had served him magnificently in ever confronting those feelings of awkwardness that plagued him when he was first transplanted from his provincial background to that training ground of the elite and studied the languid manners of the sixth form prefects who affected such lordly assurance. It was only this moment that let the real John Deed emerge from beneath his artificial self-creation.  
  
Jo could see how profoundly uncomfortable he felt and how he was embarrassed, not in being caught out in the way he denounced his more gutless immoral brethren but for having belittled Jo. John's profound loyalty towards Jo was brought to the surface, a feeling so deep rooted in him that it was so hard for him to look at it and confront himself.  
  
"I'm really sorry, Jo. I didn't mean it to come out that way. You deserve better from me," John's voice was choked with emotion.   
  
"Don't worry, John," Jo said tenderly in a way that made him feel worse about himself. "George said that that wasn't anything to feel guilty about and that in fact she sometimes feels that she goes too far the other way, and feels like a whore."   
  
"I wish she wouldn't talk like that," He said as an aside.   
  
"I'm not sure if she said it because that's how she really feels, or if she was simply trying to make me feel better," Replied Jo. "But I feel sorry for George and that is why I'm coming to the last thing that I want to talk to you about. And then both of us can be at peace."  
  
"And what might that be, Jo? I've learned to become very worried when you say words like that."  
  
Jo paused for a minute and grinned, partly because of the effect on john that she had and partly out of a touch of nerves in terms of precisely how to approach what seemed like climbing the last spur to the white topped peak of Mount Everest. The end was in sight but she needed that last spurt of energy.  
  
"John, I told you earlier on that I don't believe you when you say that you will stay faithful to just one woman, myself…….."  
  
"You underrate me, Jo," John declared in ringing tones which Jo dismissed in her own mind as worth far less than the more subdued, heartfelt confessions which she had wrung out of him. "If I put my mind to it in the same way that I pursue injustice, I can change and my better half can lead me and show me the error of my ways."  
  
"You will last one week, perhaps two at the outside, before that compulsion to steal away and seduce the first available woman takes over. You have an addiction where sex is concerned and it is time that you faced that reality. I have been trying in various ways to tell you about this side of you and never once have you acknowledged this."  
  
John maintained a stolid silence where the anger and hurt pride in him fought silently with the words like jewels as if they were written in his soul. Despite himself, he was forced to listen.  
  
"The only way that I will be able to continue with a long term relationship is only if you are allowed to stray within certain limits. Otherwise, I know that you will hurt me one time too many by your womanising and that will be the end of the two of us. If you are honest with yourself, as much as you are in court, you must know in your heart that this is true, You must know that a fairly conventional woman like myself is not enough for you and never will be. Don't come out with your usual argument that I am your ideal woman as you know that it isn't true."   
  
"So what are you suggesting?" John asked warily. His state of confusion was such that he could not for the life of him see what direction Jo was aiming at.  
  
"That comes back to George. She loves you but knows that she will never live with you. George and I have agreed," Jo said with perfect aplomb as if they were agreeing how the aborted court case should be handled between the two of them. "That your urge to stray will be limited to George and no one else," Jo finished in a very emphatic, decided tone.  
  
"George has agreed to this?" John's incredulous voice rose dramatically to an unheard of pitch. He was utterly incapable of layering over this bolt out of the blue with any pretense of being unflappable.  
  
"Yes. And what's wrong with it. It was my idea in the first place. But I must make it utterly clear that George and I will keep tabs on the situation and there is no possibility that you will not be found out if you renege on this agreement."  
  
"Do I have to sign this with my blood?" John's mistimed flippancy drew a lightning reaction from Jo.  
  
"Your word will and must be enough. Remember the way you talked once about Roe Colmore and what your word means to you. It must mean the same out of court, too."   
  
"Why did you come up with this one, Jo?" John asked, totally honestly and frankly, all pretenses and artifices laid bare.   
  
"Because George is someone who I know and who I can deal with," Jo said simply. "I know where I am with her."   
  
"Why do you bother with someone as unreliable as me?" John asked, looking into the eyes of this immensely strong and compassionate woman. All the time that he had known her, he had felt that no matter how bright and intelligent she was, he was the master. Now, he wondered how much his learning and erudition really amounted to.  
  
Jo went over to him and gently slid her arms round his bowed shoulders while his face brushed against her body in a gesture of simple human affection.  
  
"Because the judge side of you is a very fine human being, the best man whom I have ever known in my life. You need to give the rest of you a chance and let it catch up with you," Her gentle tones soothed and caressed his divided soul. As he drew her down on to his lap, he said,   
  
"Are you sure this is what you really want?"   
  
"If it means I can begin to trust you after all these years, then yes, it is." As he began kissing her, he knew this was where he wanted to be.   
  
"And George really did agree to this?" He murmured with a smile in his voice.   
  
"Oh, she took some persuading," Jo said lightly. "But I think she needs you in her life as much as I do. I know you, John Deed, and I know that you feel far more for her than you're willing to admit too, but you need to convince her of that."   
  
"What have I done to deserve you?" He said in to her hair.   
  
"Sometimes I wonder," She said with a smile. "But as long as you keep to the deal, you've got me for as long as you want me." 


	135. Part One Hundred And Thirty Five

Part One Hundred And Thirty Five   
  
On Saturday the first of November, Yvonne was again sat in the visiting room, across the table from Denny. This is where their story had begun, two and a half months before. So much had happened for both of them during this time. Yvonne had got together and broken up with Karen, watched her son be convicted and sentence to time in custody, and dealt with the ramifications of his suicide. This was to say nothing of the consequences of Fenner's death, which she was sure would creep up on them at some point in the not so distant future. For Denny, the time had been no less dramatic. Denny had finally been able to see some justice done for Shaz. She'd watched as that bitch, Merriman, had been banged up after being sent down for over twenty years, an utterly indefinable time to Denny. But then the feeling of satisfaction had been torn away from her when Merriman had killed herself. Denny had seen this as Snowball's way of ducking out of what was coming to her. But then Denny had talked to Karen. She could remember that day when Karen had found her beating the crap out of a punch bag, calling it every hateful name under the sun. Karen had listened to her, and then made a deal with her. As a result of this, Denny was keeping her nose clean, doing some education classes and trying to stay good so that she could get out as early as possible.   
  
"Do you feel like we've been here before?" Asked Yvonne with a smile.   
  
"Yeah," Said Denny, leaving her thoughts of Shaz behind in order to return to the present. "It's like when you came to visit me before the trial. I said I was going to kill Snowball, didn't I, if she didn't get sent down. But then the stupid bitch went and did it herself."   
  
"Yeah, well, I'm glad you didn't do anything like that," Said Yvonne firmly, thinking that two daughters on trial for murder would just be a bit too much.   
  
"How's Lauren?" Asked Denny, trying to change the subject.   
  
"She's okay," Said Yvonne.   
  
"Only, it'd be nice to see her," Said Denny, really wanting a chance to get to know the woman who was as good as a sister to her.   
  
"Lauren doesn't want to come near this place for a while," Said Yvonne evasively.   
  
"Why, what's she done?" Asked Denny succinctly which made Yvonne stare at her in shock. "Oh, come on, man," Said Denny in disgust. "I ain't that stupid. An Atkins has to have done something pretty bad to be afraid of coming near this place. Hey," She said, with a wicked grin on her face, "She didn't finish Fenner off, did she?" Yvonne's stunned silence seemed to say it all.   
  
"No shit," Said Denny in awe. "Tell her I'm proud of her, man."   
  
"Keep your bleedin voice down," Said Yvonne vehemently. "Doing what Lauren did ain't ever anything to be proud of. Do you understand that, Denny? Never should you be proud of doing something like that. Sometimes, things like that are necessary, the only possible solution to a problem. But that doesn't ever mean that it's something to be proud of."   
  
"Yeah, yeah, okay, man, I get it."   
  
"Well, just make sure you do."   
  
"Have the pigs been sniffing around?"   
  
"No, not yet, but I think they will. Denny, I'm scared," Said Yvonne, finally revealing the real extent of her worry for Lauren.   
  
"Hey," Said Denny, putting a hand over Yvonne's. "I thought you didn't do scared." Yvonne gave her a watery smile.   
  
"This time, I do," She said ruefully. "Denny, I don't want Lauren to end up in here. I don't want her going through everything I did."   
  
"Now you listen," Said Denny firmly, for once taking the role of the maternal figure instead of Yvonne. "If the police catch up with Lauren, and if they put her in here, I'll look after her, innit. Ain't no one gonna mess with an Atkins, and especially not if she's with me."   
  
"You're a good kid, Denny," Said Yvonne fondly. "I just hope it doesn't come to that," She finished, but knowing with her Atkins sixth sense that one day it would. When their half an hour was nearly up, they were approached by Karen.   
  
"Oy, Miss," Said Denny with a wide grin. "You better be taking good care of my water pistol, innit."   
  
"It's safe and sound in my office, Denny," Replied Karen with a smile.   
  
"That wasn't meant for confiscating," Said Yvonne reprovingly.   
  
"Oh, so you know about it, do you," Said Karen, her smile broadening. "And would I be right in suggesting that it was you who made the delivery in the first place?"   
  
"I don't know what you're talking about, Miss," Said Yvonne an innocently sweet smile on her face. "Anyway," Said Yvonne, changing the subject, "What're you doing here on a Saturday?"   
  
"I knew you were coming in to see Denny, and I wondered if we could go for a drink afterwards." Yvonne looked at Karen contemplatively. She'd been hurt to her core when Karen had ended their tentative relationship, but after a fortnight of thinking about it, she couldn't possibly fault Karen's reasoning. She knew that Karen couldn't reconcile herself with being involved with anything as illegal as murder, and as both Nikki and Cassie had spelled out to her, this was Karen's prerogative.   
  
"Yeah, sure," She said lightly, giving Karen a swift, appraising look. Agreeing to meet up after visiting time, Karen left them to it.   
  
"It's a real shame about you two," Said Denny when Karen had left.   
  
"It might sort itself out in time," Said Yvonne. "All ain't lost, not by a long way."   
  
After Denny had been taken back to the wing, Yvonne walked out to her car, to find Karen waiting for her. In silence, they walked to a bar not very far from the prison.   
  
"I think this is where we began," Said Karen, putting two glasses of scotch down on the table.   
  
"Yeah," Said Yvonne with a rueful smile. "Nearly eighteen months ago. Something happened to me that day," She said, referring to the time Karen had taken her for a drink after visiting Ritchie in hospital. "Suddenly, that barrier that usually came between us as con and screw, was gone. You were just another woman, just another mum whose son was giving her grief."   
  
"I know," Said Karen, her tone tinged with regret. "That's what you were for me, too. The only difference is that I found myself attracted to you. You made me laugh, and you put me at my ease. I felt normal for the first time in far too long. So," She said, lighting them both a cigarette, "How did we end up here?"   
  
"Because we both took the plunge," Said Yvonne, taking Karen's hand in hers and gently running a thumb over her knuckles. "Because we convinced each other that being more than just friends was a good idea. We both needed something new, something that didn't mean getting involved with yet another bastard bloke."   
  
"And it was," Said Karen vehemently. "Yvonne, no matter what happens, I will never regret those few weeks we had together. You are and always will be incredibly precious to me."   
  
"And that's what you are to me," Said Yvonne, her eyes brimming with tears. "But I can't make you happy. I love you so much," She said, the tears now cascading down her cheeks, "And I know I shouldn't say it, but I do. I just wish I'd said it, just bleedin once." Karen felt like a knife was being jabbed again and again in between her ribs, ripping out feelings with every twist of the blade. She moved round the table and sat next to Yvonne, putting her arms round her.   
  
"Now you listen to me," Said Karen, her own voice unsteady with the onset of tears. "You're not the only one who regrets not saying that. I thought it was ridiculous to feel so much for someone in such a short space of time. It was like being fourteen again. I did love you, I do love you, and a part of me will always love you. But you know why I can't be with you."   
  
"Yeah," Said Yvonne, taking comfort from the feeling of being in Karen's arms again. "I know and I do understand. Just, please, don't totally abandon us as a possibility some time in the future. Don't try and forget me as hard as you're trying to forget Fenner."   
  
"Hey," Said Karen, kissing Yvonne's cheek, "I wouldn't ever forget you, I wouldn't even try. I'll always be here for you, whatever happens, you know that. I'm not going anywhere, Yvonne, not for a long time. As for the future, who knows what might happen." As they sat there a while longer, Karen couldn't help thinking that they were two totally different people from the two mothers of dissolute, utterly narcissistic sons, who had sat in a pub searching for so many answers. They'd loved, they'd cried, they'd laughed and they'd shouted. But here they were, emerging from the other side, still friends, still there for each other, and ready to take on whatever was thrown at them, whether that be good or bad. Even if the worst should happen, and Yvonne's daughter be charged and tried with Fenner's murder, they knew that as friends, they would survive, strong for each other, ready to deal with whatever loomed over the horizon. 


	136. Epilogue

Epilogue  
  
John was sharing a lunchtime drink with Michael Nivin in a quiet bar just off the busy thoroughfare upon which the Old Bailey's massive stone structure imposed its weight of authority. In John's world, nearly all his male friends were always outside that enclosed world of the judiciary. These were people in front of whom he could let his reserve drop, the people he knew on another level from his role as a judge. It was an instinct within him that warned him that the danger to his moral welfare lay in a professional insularity. That was an insidious trap, couched in an insiders code language of interaction, which had a corrosive effect on youthful dreams. He had a sense of feeling different from his brethren, of them but not necessarily with them. This other side of him as an amateur violinist in a quintet enabled him to discuss the finer points of music and something that he craved for as self protection at an instinctive level totally at odds with the dry formal logic of the law. It was a necessary form of release. He made an exception with Michael as there was a sharing of minds as human being which made for a friendship with the strict understanding that, on no account, were they to talk 'shop.'  
  
It was at moments like this that, sitting in the bar while Michael bought the next round of drinks that other forms of release and cravings insidiously eased themselves into his mind. Other middle-aged philanderers might need the loosening effect on the inhibitions of alcohol to put themselves into the right frame of mind but John was different. The distance between his ideas and fantasies and what it took to realise them was that much shorter as if it were a spinoff effect from the particular nature of his high intelligence.  
  
It was when he was temporarily away from what few ties held him down when he was tempted the most. The week spent in the alien grey concrete architecture of Warwick University at a Human Rights conference provided just such an opportunity. He had only chanced to happen upon the very attractive French lady judge clearly bored by the inept attempts of Monty Everard to attract her charms. It only took a glance lazily exchanged between the two of them for her smile to be directed at him while Monty Everard foolishly thought that her smile was directed at him. He was a master of enabling chance, circumstances and his attractions to the female sex to be able to spend the night with the woman of his choice. It was the clandestine nature of it all, free from responsibility and wondering if what he was doing was right that was part of the attraction, the other being, the thrill of the chase.  
  
He eyed up the pretty woman in the bar which made him feel as young and vigorous as anything ever did in his life when his friend rejoined him.  
  
"Have you seen much of George lately?" he asked.  
  
Instantly, the smile on his face disappeared as if someone had switched the light off. Damn the man, he thought, as his words acted as a trip wire to his memories of George when he last spent a lot of time with her a few weeks ago. Etched into his mind was the image of how dreadfully thin she was in comparison with his previous memories of their marriage. He felt vaguely responsible for her shocking loss of weight without him ever noticing it and, for the first time in his life, her take on him, Jo and, most of all, herself. It was strange that, in all those years of marriage, all their arguments had interminably replayed the same stuck record, but only now had circumstances forced them to open up to each other. It was disturbing for both of them, he knew, because neither of them were brought up that way.   
  
He saw the ocean of pain in George's large watery eyes, the last time he talked to her, and heard again the jagged words that she forced out of herself which had been buried in her for so many years, too deep for words to express. He had tried his inadequate best to listen to her, to reassure her, to be patient and firm. He remembered the way that she had 'cut a deal' to talk about her mother on condition that he talked about his. Uncomfortable though it felt, it was a reassuring glimpse of the old, hard George whom he had crossed swords with in court. It had come to something that night, or was it nights, that he had found that bloody minded unreasonable female barrister side of her actually reassuring.  
  
A ghost memory broke its way into his consciousness uninvited. He saw himself at a particular moment in his life when he was in some faraway bar in some provincial town where he had been called on to represent a client as a barrister. It had happened before that he'd had to pack an overnight case and leave both George and home with deep regret. When you have the most sexually satisfying woman to come home to, what need was there for him to go off the straight and narrow as the older barristers in the practice were apt to. He heard them with contempt as they endlessly droned on about how the country was going to the dogs and what held this country together were decent traditional family virtues. Take the wife, for instance, wonderful woman she is and our splendid children who are such a credit to us. A return to old-fashioned values of self-discipline would soon have this country back on its feet after a decade of 'trendy lefties'. It was only later on when he overheard in snatched conversations just how much these hypocrites actually valued the sanctity of family life in the way they discreetly slid off to some secret assignation. It was strange to think that Monty Everard was nearly the same age as him but he was a descendant of this kind of ancient relic of a bygone era and perhaps that explained his instant aversion to the man.  
  
This was all before George had changed and for a reason he could not then work out. Everything had suddenly gone wrong in his marriage or so he felt resentfully, just when it was blessed by an offspring. Certainly, Charlie was the apple of his eye as her tiny, well formed fingers clutched his larger one and led him around exploring the back garden whichever way her infant will led her. George would sit out on the patio, watching them from afar through the elegance of her sunglasses from which she could look at the world around her without being similarly spied upon. The glassily mannered woman who was his wife was slimmer than ever after the birth of their child but nighttime had changed. Instead of the bed being the sexual adventure playground, or any other room in the house that they fancied, she merely accepted his overtures whereas once, she would eagerly lead him into sexual surrender with them in a mingling of bodies wrapped around each other and gloriously out of breath. He could not make head or tail of what had gone wrong though he could remember that pregnancy did not agree with her. His sexual desires remained bottled up and seeking release in a battle for will with his confused and fractious love for her.   
  
It was not until that fateful moment that he remembered feeling young and single again in a strange town, the way he used to feel and he smiled at the woman who later invited him up to her flat. He needed that boost to his sense of self esteem that he felt was his just deserts and found that the one night stand gave him that without the burden of responsibility in having to deal with another person's feelings. She was hanging around in the bar and if he had not been there that night, or so he reassured the voice of guilt, then she would have spent the night with another man.   
  
When he came home the next day, he kissed George dutifully as it felt to him that this was as much as she wanted from him and she behaved to him exactly the same way that she normally did. In that one event, the fatal divide opened up in John's soul between his outward façade to George and that restless eye for the fairer sex and his desires which proved impossible to satiate. Above all else, he had eaten of that very dangerously tasting apple that was placed in his hands in his desire for short term relationships off the beaten tracks in his life.   
  
The age in which this took place was, after all, an age of relationships rather than an age of marriages in which he had been brought up. This was a part of a changing world which he was willing to embrace, and the second and third woman that the restless "travelling salesman" lifestyle of a practising barrister made so very convenient. The second and third times, he found that his conscience spoke in a softer and softer voice until it stopped speaking at all.   
  
It was then that the unaccountable rows between him and George, started for real until he came to believe that his great love for her had been obliterated in a thousand petty arguments over nothing and a woman who did not give him what once had been his for his or her asking.   
  
"No, Michael, I've only seen her on odd occasions when she's appeared in court before me. You know how sometimes you can't help but fall over some people's feet one moment and not see them again for weeks the next," John joked to Michael and his eyes opened wide after momentarily closing after Michael spoke to him.  
  
"You ought to keep an eye on her now she's no longer with Houghton if only for old time's sake. You and George go back a long way but then again, so do you and Jo Mills."  
  
In turn, the words triggered off memories of some very unsettling conversations with Jo who revealed a firmness of manner and an ability to see into his mind that he had never suspected that she possessed. It was only a few weeks ago that her wide open intense blue   
  
eyes burned with a passion through his defences into his very soul as she manoeuvred her words through his very labyrinthine defences by the very means with which his engagement with his world was at its strongest. Some men live their lives through the fist, others through the spoken word and though he was best able to fight his way through a situation by his verbal fluency, he had been known to switch to the long forgotten boyhood skills learned on the school playground. Jo's performance had unsettled his well ballasted sense of who he was, especially the way she mixed in glowing praise on the one hand with pointed criticism on the other. Naturally, he had spent a lot of his time with Jo as part of his deal with her and he had made fervent vows to her that he would change at which Jo smiled gently without comment.  
  
The split second reflection of himself which travelled his universe at the speed of light turned what was vital in him into water and, in a spasm of irritation, the sexually reckless John of old flamed up into life who was untrammelled in what he did in his personal life in a similar way that he gleefully pushed boundaries to the limit as a judge.  
  
Instantly, Michael regretted his words. From his point of view, he merely intended that John should call round perfectly innocently to see if George was all right and forget their spectacular arguments, which were well known to raise the roof. John never did explain how the digs carpet came to be curry stained and how it's tenacity defied an army of cleaners to remove. Michael had a shrewd suspicion, which he kept to himself. You could never describe John's relationships with women exactly innocent and why should George be an exception?   
  
"I've not seen George but I was contemplating seeing her now that she has given Lover Boy the push. As you rightly say, it is my duty although it would be my pleasure also."   
  
He could never work out if he was being debonair and casually amusing to himself or to Michael. Two men of long acquaintance who did speak of more intimate moments than their shared public school upbringing normally permitted, did not find the most direct way of expressing their feelings anyway. Unburdening one's heart to another man always seemed faintly indecent to his fastidious mind.  
  
Michael groaned inwardly at John's reply. As head of the practice, he had the unenviable job of acting as mediator between the delicate sensibilities of the quarrelsome brethren who for matters of financial convenience were forever chained together in the one practice. The most frequent disruptive influence was the 'bad boy of the form,' John Deed with his perverse desire to offend and shock in his somewhat eccentric style of judgements handed down from his throne. It took Rumour Control the briefest of time for tongues to be wagging and heads to be shaken in disapproval in one week. The next week the brethren would be permeated with uncomfortable feelings of inferiority as one of his spectacular 'cutting to the core of the case' judgements sealed their tongues in heaping on him the generosity of praise that they would rather be directed at themselves. As self-regarding prima donnas, their profession was half lawyers, half actors with an uncertain unpredictable scattering of virtues and vices of both professions.   
  
The other turbulent side of John's life which must have caused Michael's hair to turn prematurely white, not grey, was John's reckless adolescent sexuality. At an age when he should, by rights, long since have settled down in a comfortable domestic routine, John was the source of the other half of the scandalous stories, which went the rounds. He did not dare to think that John had maliciously invented the stories, certainly not with his ceaseless searching for the truth. He could not find it in his heart to accuse John of hypocrisy. That was half the trouble. His own sense of virtue had compelled him to take an early morning jog round the grounds of the digs and had seen a very hung over and dishevelled Jo Mills stumble out of the front door of the digs, very much the worse for wear. This was quite apart from the more casual affairs which he did not even try to keep pace with.  
  
"For once, I must break the unspoken rule of our get togethers, John and give you some serious advice which you would do well to take to heart. Jo Mills did well to escape by the skin of her teeth from the disciplinary sanctions of the PCC, which she was hauled before. Although she was cleared of improper conduct of a relationship with a judge before whom she appeared in court, I know for certain that she was actually guilty, John."  
  
"So you believe what was supposed to be in the photos, Michael?" John's anger flamed.  
  
"I saw Jo Mills come out of the digs the morning after, John," Michael cut back in dangerously soft-spoken tones. "I was out for an early morning jog."  
  
"Ah," John said non committally.  
  
"That is all water under the bridge, John, but do not travel in the same boat under the same bridge a second time. You might not be so fortunate. See George if you must but please observe the professional limits of our profession. Even you, for once in your life," Michael replied, attempting to be stern and reasoning at the same time with a sinking feeling inside him that he had as much chance in his self imposed task as King Canute had in his.  
  
A silence descended on the room while the convivial sounds of the pub receded into the distance. Both stared at each other as the walls of the Lord Chancellor's Department closed in on them. It made Michael feel very uncomfortable and also that a totally throwaway remark had skewed the track of the conversation into an area of their life that was strictly taboo. Ancient blood lines dictated to him that he was guilty of an unforgivable breach in etiquette yet his duty to John as a friend fought for control of his will and his tongue to tell himself that he had acted for the best. He did not know the words that would smooth over the unpleasantness.  
  
"Another drink. I think that this round is on me."  
  
John smiled broadly at Michael and appreciated the traditionally male way of handling a delicate situation and graciously accepted his offer and the delicacy with which he appeared to lie.  
  
With an enormous feeling of relief, Michael took himself away purposefully to the bar where he queued up for the drinks, conveniently giving himself the space in which to calm down a bit.  
  
John, meanwhile, had a head full of duties, obligations, and confused desires whirling around in his head. Michael might feel all the better for getting that off his chest, something that had been clearly bothering him for weeks but he didn't. What the devil was Michael telling him to do, that if he went along with the plan George and Jo had cooked up for him, he would be brought before the PCC again, by proxy for compromising not one but two professional indiscretions. This time they might take notice of his inspired remark about 'one hand clapping' which poured scorn on the idea that only Jo's conduct of her personal life was relevant to the night that he had slept with a drunk, overwrought Jo who had burst in on him.   
  
If he accepted Michael's well meant advice then his fate would be consigned to that of an endless series of casual affairs which would at least keep him on the professional straight and narrow as if he were Monty Everard without his appalling wife and without the need to pay for sexual gratification. John dismissed that revolting comparison from his mind. Aside from his profession, there was nothing in common with that pompous, morally corrupt man who would tailor his judgements according to his prospects of personal advancement and currying favour with the temporary politicians who lorded it over the LCD.  
  
"A penny for your thoughts, John?" Michael offered as he carefully placed both drinks on the table.  
  
"They're not worth a penny. Utterly trivial and inconsequential," His assured and relaxed reply covered up his feelings with the expertise born of years and experience.  
  
Michael slid into the slightly alcohol fuelled bonhomie and John's sparkling conversation. He couldn't help the man even though he shook his head at his maverick behaviour. He could be as disapproving of John as anyone of the brethren but something in him wished that he could be bolder and less afraid of…. of something that his trained legal mind could not define, of life perhaps. He could not share a similar lifestyle to John, he could only sneakingly admire his performance from afar from his seat in the rear stalls. They chit chatted awhile as the conviviality of the pub wrapped itself round them again and the woman at the bar faded into the background. Perhaps, John reflected, it was not meant to be that he should meet the unknown woman.  
  
When John was back at the digs, he sat in his favourite comfortable armchair so that he could think more clearly.  
  
He knew now how little George valued herself and that knowledge still shocked him as being totally contrary to all his past impressions of her.   
  
The overwhelming force of all the words which both Jo and George had spelt out to him was that George desperately needed to feel loved and how little she felt that she deserved to be loved. When he thought about it, for once he had to discipline his desires for George into making sure that the evening was for her pleasure, for her to feel good about herself. In that way he could keep faith with Michael's advice in his fashion.   
  
"Hi George, I thought I'd call you on the off chance."  
  
George's heart leaped inside her as much as she was afraid.   
  
"Hello darling, it's lovely to hear from you. Exactly what sort of off chance had you in mind?"  
  
"Oh nothing much. It's just that I haven't seen anything of you outside court and I wanted to see how you were."  
  
From any other man, George might consider that there was a platonic side to the enquiry but not John.  
  
"Mere friendly concern really doesn't suit you, John."  
  
"Not after I trailed round the supermarket to buy you your favourite food to persuade you to eat properly and generally play nursemaid. You don't read that in the average romantic novel," John said curtly.   
  
"I'm sorry, John," George softened up. She had the habit of reverting to standard reactions in her dealings with John.   
  
John was deeply touched by the simplicity of the words and the total absence of that hard brittle edge in her voice. He knew of old the high castle walls complete with moat and drawbridge that George had constructed to protect her from the psychic dangers of apologising.   
  
"I really am concerned about you. I've been busy recently…."  
  
"With Jo no doubt," George muttered cynically.  
  
"Quite," Came the unashamed retort. "Anyway, my time is my own and, believe it or not, I really do want to see you. For once, my intentions are honourable."  
  
George permitted herself the luxury of a wide smile at the implausibility of the remark. She was prepared to concede that a fraction of John's feelings were perfectly genuine. She had hosted so many glittering parties over the years with such perfect style and played the game of superficial conversation and her address book was as full as anyone's Yet, if she thought about it, if she were in real trouble, who could she be certain that she could depend on for help? She named Daddy, of course, but besides that she could think only of John, and more recently Jo. After all, when she was at her lowest ebb, they were there for her. That thought shook her and strangely reassured her about John.  
  
"It's very sweet of you to enquire after my welfare, darling," George's amused voice slid its seductive way up and down the musical scale with perfect pitch. "But you don't need to be quite so shy." It was the way that George spoke the last four words in ironic inverted commas which aroused mixed feelings of desire and resolution in John.   
  
"Well then, can I come and see you?" John asked softly.   
  
"Yes, on Saturday night," Came the reply which did not commit George to expressing her feelings for him, only that she would be there.  
  
He sighed as he put the phone down. How could he be held to blame if there were women around who were only too eager to lead him into temptation?  
  
Ever since John's phone call, George had been on edge. She still couldn't quite get her head round this new situation. Would Jo really be okay with this, she still couldn't be sure. But would she, George, be able to go through with it. Sleeping with John had almost made her crack up altogether, and she wondered whether the memory of that would keep creeping in on what they might be doing. But George's overall concerns were that for a start, she didn't think she was anywhere near relaxed enough to enjoy anything with anyone, and would she still feel guilty, even though this would be with Jo's blessing. Good god, she thought to herself, this is just way too weird for words. She wanted to be able to go on sleeping with John without any hint of guilt hanging over her, because bed, especially with him, was one of the things she did best, and above all, she needed to start feeling good about herself again. She'd been so down, so much at rock bottom over the last few weeks, that some seriously good loving was probably the kick her endorphin levels needed to get her back on track.   
  
As she waited for John on the Saturday evening, she resisted the urge to have either a cigarette or a glass of wine. She knew that John, not being a smoker, would naturally prefer her not to taste of cigarettes, and if she had one glass of wine, the nervous state she was in would mean she'd have to keep drinking. Whatever happened tonight, whether it be good or bad, George wanted it to be because of real, unenhanced feelings, not because of too much alcohol. She'd stood for almost an hour in front of her wardrobe, wholly unable to make up her mind what she should wear. In the end, she reasoned that whatever she did wear probably wouldn't stay on for too long anyway, her outer covering being only the wrapping round the real goods of her body. Eventually deciding to play it in the minor key, she picked out a very understated simple black dress that accentuated every curve, and made her waist look even more tiny than usual. But before putting the dress on, she stood in front of the mirror, critically examining what she had to offer. It was only three weeks since she'd weighed in at five stone ten, and not too much of her lost weight had been regained since then. Walking in to the bathroom, she pulled out the scales and stepped on to them. She was still only six stone three, which admittedly was a great improvement, but not all that great. Her ribs were still too prominent, her hips and shoulder blades were still far too jutting, and her arms looked like sticks. Would he find her sexy looking like this, she couldn't be sure. Smirking at her reflection, she put on a plain black lacy bra, but decided to leave off her underwear. That would give him a surprise, she hadn't done that since they were married. After slipping the dress on, she drew around her eyes in an eyeliner that made her eyes look huge, endless and added to the lamb to the slaughter effect of the black dress. The only splash of colour she granted herself was to paint her lips with a beautiful, rich wine-red, or in some lights blood-read, shade of lip-gloss. Finally surveying the completed article, she thought that yes, she just might be able to turn him on looking like this. Whether she would be able to turn herself on was another matter. She couldn't sit still as she waited for him. She kept walking round the house, straightening this, moving that, finally putting some soft music on to calm her down, and making sure that there were plenty of logs in the basket in the hearth.   
  
When John finally arrived and rang the doorbell, she almost jumped out of her skin. Mentally telling herself to get a grip, she went to answer it. From the moment she opened the door, he could tell she was nervous about this. Everything about her face, her posture, sang tension. Even when she'd let him in, and he moved to put his arms round her and kiss her cheek, as he always did whether in public or otherwise, she instinctively moved out of his reach.   
  
"How are you?" He asked, realising this was going to be harder than he'd first thought.   
  
"Still only six stone three," She replied, "So you may want to change your mind about this." They'd walked in to the lounge, and in the firelight, he caught hold of her hand to stop her from moving away.   
  
"You look beautiful," He said, allowing his eyes to run scrutinizingly the whole length of her body.   
  
"That's not quite what the mirror told me," She said, immediately withdrawing her hand from his.   
  
"Well, I am a far better judge than your mirror," He said, running a finger down her cheek. Still not sure whether she liked the effect his words and his touch were having on her, she said,   
  
"I've allowed some red wine to breathe. Would you like a glass?" Saying that yes he would, John sat down in what had once been their favourite armchair, and waited for her. But seeing that she had a book of music open on the piano, he got up and went to see what it was. As he read the words, "Nocturne in D Flat major, Op.27 No.2", a flood of memories almost swamped him. It was as if John had returned in his mind to a time in his life that was happy and uncomplicated, to a sense of unity with George when he was young and ardent and that he had found the feeling of family that he most needed. Years of life at public school only gave him a feeling of coldness and disconnectedness which he found only too easy to slip into after his mother's suicide and the way his father emotionally withdrew from him. He is swept away with George right now as she plays this piece with delicate piano notes which he can hear in his mind all wrapped around with her nakedness that he is enjoying now with her. He opened his eyes and the dream faded and the piano is silent and the older George is here in the house where they were married. He is older now and he is here to try and repair the damages to her from over the years.  
  
George returned and handed him his glass.   
  
"I'm trying to relearn it," She said, observing his examination of her music.   
  
"I haven't heard you play since we were married."   
  
"I'm sure you will some time," She said, as he moved back to the armchair and she, for now, took her usual seat in the right hand corner of the sofa. "Jo heard me play once," She continued, though not really sure why she was telling him this. "It was that evening she came looking for a fight after being a little too overzealous with Karen Betts' case." This seemed to bring John out of his thoughts.   
  
"Speaking of Karen Betts," He said, after taking a mouthful of the rich, sultry Pinot Noir. "Why did you warn her off me?" George grinned.   
  
"And just how do you know I did?" John could have cursed, he'd been caught out. When he didn't immediately reply, George just rolled her eyes. "You slept with her, didn't you."   
  
"Well, you should know by now," He said with a broad smile. "That telling me not to do something is as good as giving me maximum encouragement, and I think the same goes for Karen. I do know that she took your warning seriously, but that it didn't frighten her off."   
  
"Why am I not surprised?" She said dryly. "And I'm assuming Jo doesn't know about this."   
  
"No," Said John seriously. "She doesn't, and I'd really rather it stayed that way."   
  
"Your past exploits aren't the issue. It's your present or future ones that I'm concerned about."   
  
"You're not the only one who's had reservations about this," He said, finally getting round to the thing that was clearly bugging them both.   
  
"I'd have thought that for you, it simply meant double the amount of your favourite pastime."   
  
"Jo wouldn't have suggested this if she didn't think it was the right thing to do."   
  
"I know," Said George, badly wanting a cigarette but still resisting the urge. "And where you're concerned, I wholeheartedly agree with her. You need to feel like you're playing away, and I'm probably not bad mistress material. I just don't know if either JO or I will get used to it."   
  
"That isn't all you are to me, you know that," He said gently but firmly.   
  
"Yes, it is," She said, equally quietly. "You've loved Jo for a very long time, and for some reason, she thinks that giving you licence to sleep with me on the side will keep you on the straight and narrow. Who knows, nothing else has worked so far, but something as bizarre and radical as this little arrangement just might." It hurt him to the core to hear her talk about herself so dismissively. Referring to herself as part of an 'arrangement' somehow cheapened herself when she had no reason to belittle herself, yes George, the supremely confident one at so many parties, like Monty Everard's. She shouldn't do that to herself, he thought. No one knew George like him, he reflected, even if it bewildered him that he was only just getting to know her after all these years.   
  
"If you're so convinced that I only see you as a beautiful body to keep me off the streets as it were, why are you prepared to go along with this." Putting her wine down, George stood up and moved over to the hearth, putting another log on the fire to give her hands something to do. She kept her eyes to the blaze, so that all he could see was her enchanting but still too thin profile.   
  
"I still love you, John," She said, finally turning to face him. "Probably too much for my own good." She did her best to hide it, but he could see in her face that all she wanted was the pretence of being loved. In making love, she would, temporarily at least, feel that he loved her. The way George saw him, anything was better than nothing. If she could have the occasional appearance of being loved by him, she could allow herself, for those few hours, to believe that she did mean as much to him as he said she did. It was what she couldn't keep out of her eyes that told him more than anything else just how low she still was, and just how little she really thought of herself, never mind all her public bravado.   
  
"Come here," He said softly, and she moved closer until he could take her hand and draw her down on to his knee, enclosing her in the arms whose presence she'd privately missed so much over the years. Knowing that she wasn't going out anywhere, George hadn't bothered to wear shoes with her dress, and now rested her bare feet on the stone flags of the hearth. Even though she made the pretence of relaxing against him, he could still feel the tension in every muscle, every bone. He realised that he was going to have his work cut out if he didn't want her to try that trick that had obviously worked so well and been used so frequently on Haughton. He laid a hand on her cheek, turning her face towards him so that he could examine its every feature.   
  
"I wish you wouldn't do that," She said, her eyes constantly flinching away from his scrutiny. "You act as if you can read my face like a particularly transparent book."   
  
"I can usually," He said with a smile. "It makes you thoroughly incapable of hiding anything from me."   
  
"Sounds like I need to brush up my act," She replied dryly.   
  
"I'd rather you didn't," He said, gently drawing her face closer to his. "I much prefer you just as you are." When their lips met, George briefly felt as if she'd stepped off the dock in to a swirl of unsteady waters, for now calm and tranquil, but which could at any time become violent.   
  
"I love you," He said after a while, which made her detach her lips from his, leaning slightly away so that she could look at him.   
  
"John, that's one little piece of false sentimentality I don't want to hear. I know you think you love me, but you don't, you can't. So please, don't say it." This cut him like a knife. It seemed a savage irony that John had lured so many women to bed so easily with his silver tongue, with his ability to make them feel good about themselves. He felt an abject failure when he couldn't do the same with George, one of the two women in his life whom he felt closest to. His words were the most sincerely meant, of all the times in his life when he really wanted to do the greatest good to another human being, yes almost like the way he wanted so passionately and platonically to bring justice for another human being. Why couldn't George believe him? He gently drew her back to lean against him.   
  
"If there's one thing I'm going to convince you of without fail," He said softly and determinedly. "It's that I do love you." George looked extremely sceptical.   
  
"Oh, really," She said disbelievingly. "John, I'm not the woman you used to know."   
  
"Yes, you are," He said gently. "Underneath all that self-doubt, self-loathing and uncertainty. That's what depression does to a person." She flinched at the word depression. "You've just forgotten what it's like to be loved, to be appreciated for being so beautiful." She looked sceptical.   
  
"I don't want to disappoint you," She said, slightly turning her face away from him.   
  
"George, if this is all you want for now, that's fine."   
  
"But it's not," She said, clearly exasperated with herself. "I need what I know you want to give me too much. I just don't know if I'm capable of enjoying it."   
  
"Well," He said, beginning to kiss her again. "That's for me to find out, isn't it." Did she realise that he wouldn't reproach her if she couldn't go through with it? She wasn't sure. But she allowed him to kiss her, because, just for now, it made her feel safe, cherished, as if he really meant what he'd said. He had his right arm around her waist, and it was simplicity itself to begin caressing her breast with his right hand. As his thumb grazed over her nipple, she could feel the beginnings of the waves of lust creeping over her, making her senses gradually begin to smoulder like the newspaper she'd used to light the fire. He'd always loved the way her body reacted to him, her pinpoint nipples pushing at the front of her clothing, the small indecipherable sounds she made in the back of her throat. He casually rested a hand on her thigh, and when the permission was granted by a slight altering of her position, he began to inch his way up her bare leg under the black dress. He took his time, wanting to give her any opportunity to change her mind, but she didn't. When his hand eventually reached her hip, and he discovered that she wasn't wearing any underwear, his eyebrows soared. Smirking at him, she said,   
  
"I thought you'd like that." It dawned on him, that in having done this, it had been her intention all along to sleep with him, no matter how she felt about it. It touched him greatly that she was prepared to do this for him, to let him make love to her, even if she didn't especially want or enjoy it. This realisation only increased his resolve to make this night as special as possible for her.   
  
"What would really relax you?" He asked, knowing that this was the key to any further intimacy. She looked thoughtful, knitting her brows together in that utterly transparent way he'd always adored.   
  
"A massage might just do it," She said eventually. As they gently disengaged themselves and she slid from his knee, she wondered if she really could come up with the goods. It would be a further, enormous dent in her self-esteem if she couldn't, but she knew that lying to him just wasn't an option. He'd been aware of her faking it the last time, and she knew that he wouldn't fail to notice it if she did it again. Picking up their glasses of wine, they walked upstairs, George wondering just what the hell she was doing, and John wondering if he would be able to push her buttons tonight.   
  
When they reached her bedroom, George suddenly became aware of just how thin she still was. As his hand moved to the buttons of her dress, she stopped him.   
  
"John, I still don't look that good."   
  
"To me, you will always be beautiful," He said, his hand continuing in its progress to unveil her. Thinking that he would soon change his mind, she let him. When her dress was discarded, along with the simple black bra, she had the desire to flee, to hide her unattractive body from his gaze.   
  
"Do you still like what you see?" She asked, her apprehension making her tone take on some of the old Georgia Channing bite. running a finger over the curve of her breast, he said,   
  
"George, I'm not going to suddenly go off you just because one of your favourite fallbacks went a little too far." Kissing her, he asked, "Where do you keep the massage oil these days?"   
  
"Top shelf of the bathroom cabinet," She said with a soft smile. When he returned, she had drawn back the duvet and was lying waiting for him. He was out of his clothes in a trice.   
  
"I swear you're the quickest undresser I've ever known," She said with a smirk.   
  
"I've had a lot of practice," He said dryly. Joining her on the bed, he spent a few moments just looking at her. As for her thinness, he couldn't fail to notice the way her skin was stretched over her hips and ribcage, heightening the obvious lack of spare flesh or flesh of any kind.   
  
"After having seen myself in the mirror this evening, I would understand if you changed your mind."   
  
"George," He said gently but firmly, leaning over to kiss her. "Shut up, and turn over." Unable to suppress a grin at his words, she did as she was told. After leaving her for a moment to switch on the CD-player on her dressing-table, this time containing Lizst, he returned to the bed, picked up the bottle of massage oil, and began gently kneading her shoulders. The sultry scents of Gardenia and Sandalwood permeated the air, mingling with the soft music to create an atmosphere to take them both temporarily away from their ordinary lives. She loved the way his oiled hands were sliding over her skin, deftly untangling the knots of muscle in her neck and her upper back. She writhed half in ecstasy half in agony under his skilful fingers. His mission was to take away every inch of tension, to reduce her to a gently simmering cauldron of lust and desire. As his hands moved gradually down her back, they stretched to their full span, his outer fingers curling round her to occasionally tease the undersides of her breasts. Except for when he came in to contact with a particularly stubborn tangle of muscle or ligament, she didn't make any sound. They were both focussing solely on their sense of touch, her by what he was doing, and him by her physical reactions. He was slightly disturbed, on moving lower, to find that his hands did indeed span her waist. It frightened him that she could allow herself to become so tiny, but he tried to ignore these thoughts and keep on going. As his hands slid languorously over her buttocks and began kneading the tops of her thighs, she let out a very low sound of utter contentment.   
  
"So, this is working, is it," He said softly, finally breaking the silence.   
  
"Mmm," She groaned luxuriously, for the moment incapable of forming actual words. As he progressed down to her calves, she knew this was what it meant to be in complete and utter heaven. Once he'd reached her incredibly pretty and well-manicured feet, he reached for her hips and gently turned her over. There is nothing quite so sensual as having a pair of well-oiled, skilful hands putting the muscles of your feet back in to their proper places. The feeling alone makes you feel as if you could walk forever without wanting to sit down. When his hands moved back up her already relaxed calves, and began removing the tension from the front of her thighs, she thought it was time to give him some visual pleasure. His gaze had been almost solely centred on her still very shapely legs, but he was suddenly aware of her right hand moving towards him. But she didn't attempt to touch him, as he'd thought she was going to, but to touch herself, her finger and thumb gently seeking out her clitoris, right in front of his eyes.   
  
"As incredible as that looks," He said, after a few moments observation. "Don't do it."   
  
"Why?" She said, not obeying him. "I thought that seeing me do this was one of your things."   
  
"Not tonight," He said with a smile. "I think you need reminding what you've been missing." Gently removing her hand, he placed it on the bed beside her. "Any pleasure you receive tonight will be given by me and me alone." Oh, how she loved it when he was masterful, though she'd never admit it.   
  
He began kissing his way up her left thigh but, whether because she couldn't help it or simply to wind him up, she began running her left hand over her left breast, bringing her own nipple to a pinpoint, bullet-like hardness. But John had kept his eye on her, knowing she might do this.   
  
"Eh," He said, using the firm tone he'd often used on her in court. "Do you want me to tie your hands to the headboard, to keep them out of harm's way?" Her eyes widened in excitement.   
  
"Not tonight, no," She said, her mouth dry with lust. Taking hold of both her wrists, he momentarily held them to the bed.   
  
"Then you'll have to be patient," He Said with a broad smile, remembering of old her occasional liking to be treated as a misbehaving schoolgirl who couldn't wait for the thing she wanted most.   
  
"John, I'm useless at being patient, you know that." Part of him wanted to make her wait, to see how long she could last, but the rest of him just wanted to lavish every ounce of attention on her he could muster. Kissing his way up her thigh, over her hip and up between her breasts, he purposefully avoided every possible erogenous zone, making her twitch with frustration. When he reached her face, he said,   
  
"I don't care what your mirror told you, you are beautiful."   
  
"John, let's not argue about that again. You seem to think I am, and I know I'm not. Let's just leave it at that." This was what told him that she really was still in a bad way.   
  
"George," he said slowly. "I remember the days when you knew how beautiful you were. Every time you left the house, even if it was only to go to the supermarket or the office, you always knew how good you looked. I remember walking down Oxford Street with you, and you'd be looking in shop windows just to keep an eye on your reflection. I had to glare at so many men for gazing at you."   
  
"Not anymore, John," She said, with too much finality in her tone. Starting to kiss her, he said,   
  
"The other part to my mission, is to make you start liking yourself again. You've held on to far too much guilt for far too long, and now it's time to let some of that go." Knowing that he absolutely believed in what he was saying brought tears to her eyes. Furiously blinking them away, she said,   
  
"I'd like to believe you were right."   
  
"Aren't I always?" He said between kisses.   
  
"No, you're certainly not," She said in mock disgust. But thought of further words was drowned as he moved a hand, still baring the traces of massage oil, over her right nipple, as if switching on a light, returning her to her previous state of heightened awareness. As he regretfully detached his lips from hers and kissed his way down to encircle her other nipple, George made up her resolve to simply go with the flow, let her feelings take her where they would and to get her head round it afterwards. If she tried to understand or deconstruct it here and now, she knew she probably wouldn't enjoy it. As she felt his tongue flicker over her already hypersensitive nipple, a random thought popped in to her head, making her blush all over. Feeling the sudden heat in her skin, John detached himself and looked up at her blushing cheeks and widened eyes. Realising she'd just thought something incredibly naughty, he asked,   
  
"What are you thinking?"   
  
"Nothing," She answered evasively, turning her gaze away from his.   
  
"Your capacity for telling little white lies hasn't improved over the years," He said, grinning broadly.   
  
"I was just thinking that you must have done that to Karen Betts." John's eyebrows soared in comprehension. Then, as the wickedest grin she'd ever seen began to spread over his face, he said,   
  
"And you found that thought somewhat erotic, didn't you."   
  
"Yes," She said, trying to brush the admission away. "Terrible, isn't it."   
  
"No, just amusing," He said, thinking he just might know what she wanted.   
  
"Will you tell me about her?" George asked, proving him absolutely right.   
  
"Are you sure you really want to know?" He asked, not wanting to upset her.   
  
"Let's just say that the word curiosity would be an enormous understatement where you and Karen Betts are concerned." Taking her word as gospel, he arranged the pillows so that he could sit leaning up against the headboard, and then raised her up slightly so that she was lying with her back against his chest. Putting his arms round her, one hand still moving on her breast, he said,   
  
"What do you want to know about her?"   
  
"Everything. What she looks like, what you did with her, everything."   
  
"Why?"   
  
"Because she is without doubt the sexiest woman I've ever seen. Is there a better reason?"   
  
"No, of course not," He said, looking down in to her upturned smiling face. "You've seen what she looks like," He said, his lips close to her ear.   
  
"Not well and truly unclothed, I haven't."   
  
"But you'd like too, wouldn't you." George stretched languorously in response.   
  
"You know I would," She said, bringing his other hand to her other breast. "Or you wouldn't be telling me about her now."   
  
"Well, she's got wonderfully tanned legs that just seem to go on for ever. I think most of her height is in her legs, and I'm not sure where, but she's spent some of her summer sunbathing completely naked."   
  
"Lucky sun," Said George dryly, but loving the way John's words were creeping over her like honey.   
  
"And no matter what she's wearing, nobody could fail to miss how well-sculptured she is."   
  
"Yes, I could be quite envious of a cleavage like hers." Turning her slightly so that she was half sprawled across his thighs and supported in the crook of his left arm, he kissed her and said,   
  
"You shouldn't be. A cleavage that a man, or a woman, could get lost in wouldn't look right on you. You are beautiful as you are." Running a soft thumb directly over her nipple, he said, "Doing this to her made her eyes go briefly glazed. I thought it was odd, but when we were first in bed, she couldn't keep her eyes or her hands off me."   
  
"What's odd about that?" Said George with a little smirk. "I know how she feels."   
  
"Let me finish," He said gently but firmly. "It was as if she was reacquainting herself with what it was like to be in bed with a man again."   
  
"Well, if she's been sleeping with Yvonne Atkins, that's hardly surprising."   
  
"I can't be certain, but I think the last man she slept with before me was Ritchie Atkins."   
  
"Then no wonder she ignored my advice. Did she like what she saw?"   
  
"I think so," John replied modestly, though not fooling George an inch. He moved a hand down between her legs, for the moment just running the gentle tip of his finger over her perfectly smooth skin.   
  
"Was she shaved?" George found herself asking.   
  
"She certainly was," Said John between kisses, deftly seeking out George's little bundle of nerves.   
  
"You usually prefer women who are, don't you," She said, in total certainty.   
  
"I would never not sleep with a woman just because she didn't," He said thoughtfully. "But it is far more erotic. Karen Betts was so responsive," He said, his finger and thumb moving back and forth over her clit. "She was about as wet as you are now," He added, dipping a long, tapered finger inside her, feeling the liquid heat of her arousal which told him just how much she was enjoying this.   
  
"You gave her oral, didn't you," George asserted, knowing him of old.   
  
"How did you guess," He said with a smile.   
  
"Because for some reason you could never get enough of doing that for me, and I suspect you're the same with most of the other women you've slept with over the years. Admittedly I'll do the same for you from time to time, but it's like you're hooked on doing it."   
  
"You've got absolutely no idea, have you," He said with a broad smile. "Most women taste absolutely divine, all slightly different, but nevertheless wonderful." Taking the delightfully presented opportunity, he removed his finger from inside her and intently watching her slowly widening eyes, he ran his finger across her lips. As her pink tongue came out and flickered over his finger, tasting what he'd presented to her, her breathing quickened. When he'd removed his finger from her lips, and returned it to doing what it had always done best in the world, he said,   
  
"You quite liked that, didn't you."   
  
"It's certainly a vast improvement on anything any man has to offer," She said dryly, almost to cover up how startled she'd been at the taste of her own sexual secretion.   
  
"I think you ought to sleep with a woman," He said, expertly moving his thumb over her clit and returning two fingers to the heat of her body. "If only to get it out of your system."   
  
"How do you know I wouldn't find I preferred women to men?" She asked mischievously.   
  
"Because I know that no matter how many different ways you might find of getting yourself an orgasm," He said with complete assurance. "You'll always at some point return to the feeling of having someone inside you, making you feel as full as it's possible to feel, taking you over the edge with that final hard thrust that makes you one whole being instead of two." Whilst he'd been saying all this, his hand had increased its speed, and he could feel her breath coming in quicker and shorter gasps. She clung to him as her orgasm approached, almost crushing his hand between her thighs.   
  
When she finally lay still in his arms, her head on his shoulder, he gently removed his hand, softly smiling down at her.   
  
"Now tell me something," He said, when she looked like she'd returned to the land of the living. "Why have you never asked me anything of the sort about Jo."   
  
"I'd have thought that was obvious," She said, her voice slightly drowsy. "I don't fancy Jo."   
  
"Pity," He said contemplatively. "Because you and her would look sensational together."   
  
"Don't tell Jo that," George said on a laugh. "She'd run away screaming." After a little while of silent closeness, George slipped out of his embrace, and with the agility of an eel, slid down the bed until her cheek was resting on his thigh.   
  
"You don't have to," He said, realising her intention.   
  
"Did Karen?" George asked, though this wasn't going to alter her decision.   
  
"Yes, she did, and believe me, there isn't much to choose between you for that."   
  
"Oh, really," George drawled, dipping her head to enclose him in her warm supple lips. For a while there wasn't much sound between them, as even Georgia Channing couldn't talk with her mouth full. When he knew he was fast approaching the point of no return, he gently detached her from him.   
  
"I thought you might like me to take you the whole way like that," She said in surprise.   
  
"Not tonight," He said, sliding down the bed until he was level with her. "I want to be inside you."   
  
"As it happens, you were," She said with a smirk, "but we won't split hairs." As she moved to lie on her back, he put a hand out to stop her. Realising that he wanted her to be the aggressor, she gently pushed him back, swung one leg over his and sank deliciously down on to his rock hard shaft. He sucked in a breath as her boiling heat enclosed him, hoping he could last long enough to make it good for her too. As they moved in perfect rhythm, he found that his hands were spanning her waist, perhaps reminding him of how thin she still was. The sight of her small but heavy breasts dancing in perfect syncopation to their rising scale of passion was enchanting. Detaching one hand from her waist, he sought out her clitoris, determined to give her as much pleasure as possible, this particular position making this much easier. When they finally hurtled over the inevitable precipice her internal muscles almost squeezed the life out of him. She leaned forward and flung her arms round him, both clinging together for the end of their joyride. Afterwards, she lay for a moment against John's chest, but soon he turned them on to their sides. Her eyes looked bright and happy, and at the same time thoroughly exhausted. a possible lack of physical energy, due to her still not eating as much as he thought she should, hadn't really occurred to him until now. But as they lay, gently nestling in each other's arms, he could see her eyes gradually beginning to close. When she shivered slightly, he detached himself in order to reach for the duvet, most of which had fallen to the floor.   
  
"Tell me you're not going?" She murmured with a slight hint of fear.   
  
"I'm not going anywhere," He said, covering them both and putting his arms round her.   
  
"I love you, John," She said, her voice slightly slurred with the approach of sleep.   
  
"And I love you," He whispered, softly pressing his lips to hers as she finally drifted off in to the land of dreams. 


End file.
